Nine-Tailed Foxes are Dead
by RowlettLesbian
Summary: For Konoha, it's been one month since the preliminary Chunin exams. For Naruto, it's been six. And he wasn't in Konoha. At the end of his ordeal, Naruto walks into the Chunin Exam finals without his left arm. Shikamaru is very concerned. ShikaNaru Fuuinjutsu Master Naruto
1. Present

Naruto had thought he'd felt emptiness before. Empty like lonely, empty like hungry, empty like tired of the hatred from the villagers. He'd never been empty before. Naruto had nothing left in him, now. Like he'd been scoured out with steel wool.

He left his apartment without so much as bothering to close the door. It wasn't like anything was left inside to ruin, and all of his things were long gone. He had the black tank-top he was wearing, and the black shorts, and the hitai-ate he used to hold the ripped up shirt over the stump where his left arm used to be. As he walked out of his building to head towards the arena, he idly smoothed the metal with his hand. It had a chip near the upper left corner he hadn't noticed before. It must be from the kunai that got that chunk of his hair.

The sun looked to Naruto to be at about the 10:00 position, so he'd make it just in time for his match if nothing waylaid him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to make it to his match or not, but he idly thought that once he wasn't feeling so empty he'd probably regret it if he didn't give Neji the respect of a proper fight. Neji wasn't as bad as he'd thought, six months ago. Well, one month for the human realm.

The arena was unfamiliar and familiar to Naruto. The entrance was unguarded, so there was no one he could ask about directions, but he'd had enough practice tracking that it turned out he didn't need them. He hadn't realized his sense of smell and eye for scuff marks had gotten so refined. He walked down an arched hallway towards the sound of dozens of people shuffling and the smell of all those people, shinobi and otherwise. He brought his arm up to his face and idly tried to wipe away some blood from the cut on his forehead. Healing would be really great right about then, but the nine tail's chakra and his own large reserves weren't something to waste even if he did have plenty. He knew that now. Right before a fight was the last time to worry about superficial wounds.

Naruto noticed he seemed to be slipping back into survival mode. That is, if he'd left it in the first place. His bare feet shuffled against the dusty stone. He was at the entrance.

"Naruto Uzumaki has 20 seconds to enter the ring or face disqualification!" The voice sounded like it had come from some sort of megaphone. He guessed that was his cue. Naruto grabbed onto the railing and flipped himself heels over head into the ring, where he could see Neji waiting with a deep scowl. He let himself fall freely, with no attempts at evading injury. After all this, after coming here to pay respect to Neji, he didn't really care if he scraped a knee.

He landed a fair few meters away from Neji with a thud and, as he'd predicted, a bloodied knee. He took his time standing up and once he had his feet under him he looked over to the proctor with a lazy sway of his torso. His balance was perfect as always, and he hated feeling so stiff. He was tired, so why shouldn't he just barely do what he needed to stay on his feet?

The referee was holding a senbon in his mouth, but it slipped out to the ground as his lips slackened. His eyes were also bugging out of his head beneath his hitai-ate. Naruto jerked his head away from those eyes. After six months free from the glares or judgements of Konoha citizens, he didn't know how he felt about being looked at. Especially looking so raggedy. Kami, his teammates up in the stands must think he looks so stupid, having somehow managed to get so beat up and be late for such a big exam. Naruto refused to look up at the stands and check. Kakashi-sensei was probably going to look at him all condescending and apathetic.

Naruto looked across the center of the arena to Neji. The Hyuuga was perfectly clean. His clothes were untainted tan, his joints clean and un-chapped. His hair was so straight and shiny draped around his flawlessly polished hitai-ate. Naruto would probably get him all smudged when they fought. Neji would look pretty funny with red-brown streaks all over wherever Naruto hit him.

Neji was staring at him with his face all veiny. He'd never seen Neji make an expression that wasn't pissy before. It didn't suit him. Whatever look Neji was giving him, it made him look like he was holding back a sneeze. The weirdo was actually leaning forward and gaping a little. Even his teeth were shiny clean.

"Hey, Neji!" Naruto shouted over to him with his first smile in days, "You look really nice! Sorry about how dirty I'm gonna get ya! Also I'll probably laugh at you when you're all messed up so sorry in advance! Do your best-ttebayo!" Neji's jaw dropped a little lower. Still, his expression was less goofy and more angry, now, so that was maybe a good thing. Neji almost looked handsome when he looked like he wanted to kill you.

Nothing moved for a long moment, and then the proctor's watch let out a chime and, seemingly reflexively, the ref said "Match, start!" Naruto planted his heel and spun, sprinting away at a slight angle from Neji. He let his bare feet dig into the dust for speed, staying as low to the ground, as fast, as possible. He could hear Neji shouting and pursuing him at what would for most shinobi be a bad angle to be approached from. Naruto, though, he loved it when he was approached from the side where he'd had his arm chopped off. He ran as fast as he could go in a wide circle, a circle he'd chosen so that his stump would face inwards. It was the perfect bait.

His first glance at Neji was when the Hyuuga was mere feet away and Naruto had to swing himself up onto his palm, upside down and pulled forward by his own momentum so that he could land his heel with a deep crack against Neji's jaw. By the time Neji had snapped his head back forward Naruto was already spinning away in his much faster three-limb rotational movement. For every two or three times he put down a foot, he also used his hand to push himself forward in a front or back or even side flip. It was a bit uncontrolled when he needed to stop, but stopping was not going to be his biggest problem today. He didn't need skin on his knees anyways. He just needed to complete his circle and then he could end this.

Naruto began his circuit by planting one palm into the dirt as he cartwheeled and letting it twist.

He was up and continuing his circuit on two feet as soon as he'd planted the mark. He had to distract the Hyuuga, to keep him from noticing the circle. And Naruto knew, the best way to hide a prank is with a prank.

Naruto whipped around and launched himself at Neji. Those big, pupil-less eyes look pretty funny all wide open like that. It made Neji look like some sort of bug-eyed bug! Naruto giggled as he used his twisting momentum to break through the unsuspecting Hyuuga's guard and punch Neji right in the nose. It snapped beneath his fist.

Naruto was now tilted forward, in the perfect position for Neji to do anything to him. To touch Naruto in any painful way he wanted. Naruto dropped down bonelessly, not even pretending he was willing to get into a spar, and pushed chakra into his bare feet, activating the seals. He was launched forward right beneath Neji's extremely fast knee-jab and off running to the next mark point before Neji could wrap him up into an exhausting taijutsu battle that Naruto would almost certainly lose.

Naruto's breath was already coming fast. It made the bruises around his ribs ache, made his nose and eyes sting. His throat felt like he'd swallowed sandpaper. There was blood dripping into his eye again but he must not stop to wipe his forehead, he knew that. Fighting with obstructed sight was a basic survival technique. Naruto cussed under his breath. He'd have to believe he'd learned enough to handle this. A fight where his opponent wasn't even trying to kill him should be doable. He wasn't sure why he had to win if his life wasn't at stake, he couldn't think well when all his thoughts were focused on the rocks stuck in his feet and the not-enough air in his chest and locks of blonde hair sticking to his neck from blood. Still, he could figure out why he was desperate to defeat Neji after he'd managed it.

Naruto hit the next mark and flipped himself forward onto his palm, throwing his legs into a split and spinning them to twist his hand down and make the second mark. This had the added advantage of helping him to dodge an incoming jab from Neji. Naruto let Neji drive him back. Every jab towards one of Naruto's whatever-points that Hyuugas liked to poke missed be inches as Naruto kept pushing himself back and away. He watched carefully as Neji got angrier and angrier.

"This is the end, for you. Talent is decided when the person is born. You were never destined to win this fight." The Hyuuga's teeth were gritted. Naruto eyed Neji's feet and bared his teeth as his opponent rocked his weight forward on his back foot. The Hyuuga slammed his arm forward into a lunge just a tad further forward than he'd used so far. He obviously expected Naruto to jump back again.

Naruto lunged forward towards the arm aimed at his neck, let it skim the side of his face, and bit down hard on Neji's clean, soft forearm.

The Hyuuga screamed and his other hand rocketed towards Naruto's side, but he'd already dropped onto all fours and yanked his head back, throwing Neji off by a mile. The flesh between his teeth separated from Neji's arm with a harsh slurp and Naruto dug in every finger and toe, even the nail less ones, as he shot away from the enraged Hyuuga. He spat out the lump of bloody skin on his way.

"Neji," he called back to the Hyuuga, "sorry, but I just don't know when to give up!"

The Hyuuga was fast, Naruto would give him that. But Naruto had been running for his life for months. Neji had none of Naruto's capacity for a desperate, burning sprint or a random, zig-zaggy path meant to keep Naruto away from those precise blows. It also helped that Neji wouldn't stop clutching his arm. Neji was faster than Naruto in almost every single way, but not when it came to running away until the trap was set.

Naruto got two more marks placed as he led Neji around the arena. The Hyuuga was furiously pursuing him, leaping at him with chakra enhanced everything. It was kind of what Naruto had always imagined playing leapfrog would be like. Naruto would jump, so Neji would jump, and in the end they just ended up going in circles exactly as Naruto wanted.

"Enough!" cried the Hyuuga. Naruto didn't stop. Any word from an opponent's mouth could be a trick, and he could not let Neji land a hit on him. Two limbs unusable would be a bit much. "This is the end, for you. You're in range, and you can't escape my eight trigrams. Gentle-fist art: Eight-trigams, sixty-four palms!" Neji had stopped and placed his arms and hands in position for what was obviously a new technique. Naruto skidded to a halt and prepared to launch himself out of the way.

Neji came at him in a blue-tinted blur. Everything hurt. He'd had so much worse, so much faster, but Neji just kept jabbing him in what felt like the worst possible places. He could feel his already damaged and incomplete chakra pathways slamming shut, everywhere except around his stump where the chakra pathways were already broken and frayed at the edges. It felt, maybe, two-thirds as ad as getting stabbed. What was worse was that Neji was close to him, hurting him, and moving so fast that Naruto couldn't even see him. He couldn't dodge, couldn't block, he was powerless. Again.

Neji finally backed away and Naruto felt dirt and small stones digging into his bewhiskered cheek. He opened his eyes and kept them on the only part of Neji he could see, his pristine, clean feet. Not a toenail out of place. Naruto was kind of jealous. He missed his toenails a lot…

"You're lucky to still be breathing. Must be frustrating, to realize how utterly hopeless it all was, this little dream of yours. You thought you could succeed through hard work alone? That's only an illusion. Especially with this new disadvantage of yours." Naruto planted his hand against the ground and half-shoved, half-rolled himself upright as quickly as possible. Being prone before an enemy rattled every last one of his nerves no matter how stiff and in pain he was in.

"What disadvantage? You talkin' about my height you bastard?" Naruto was very frustrated by his apparent inability to surpass 4'10". He refused to believe it was because of ramen!

"Impossible. How could he?" Neji was staring at him with his weird veiny-eyes again. It was pretty dumb of the Hyuuga, how he kept pausing to talk in the middle of a battle, but Naruto figured if he kept Neji talking then he'd have more time to catch his breath. Naruto grinned so that Neji could see every last one of his sharp teeth.

"I told you. I just don't know when to give up."

"Stop this madness! You'll only get more of the same. I have nothing against you personally." Neji wasn't even in a fighting stance. Naruto, however, dropped into one. This match was going to go to whoever could catch the other by surprise. He loved being surprising.

"Ha! That's touching. You're gonna make me cry. Anyway, I haven't got anything against you either." Naruto started pushing his awareness inwards, to that strange link at the small of his back.

"Then why are you even fighting me? You obviously shouldn't be out of the hospital." Naruto growled and kept focusing inwards.

"Because you're wrong about who's a failure. You don't get to just take out your pissiness on others, you arrogant jackass! I'm here to give you my best fight, and I expect the same from you. Out of respect for an equal Konoha-nin." Neji scoffed and for the first time this fight he looked truly, albeit angrily, sad. His nose crinkled up in a look like villagers gave him when he tried to buy food.

"Arrogant? Equal? Do you know nothing of the Hyuuga clan's heritage of hatred? For generations the main branch has practiced a secret ninjutsu, the cursed-mark jutsu." As he spoke, Neji untied and removed his hitai-ate. It made Naruto want to scream, before he saw the tiny green cross on Neji's forehead that reeked of fuuinjutsu. "It is the symbol. Of a bird trapped in its cage. It's the mark of those who are bound to a destiny they cannot escape…I was four years old when the leaders of my clan branded my forehead. Lady Hinata's third birthday. Her father is sitting up there. My father's twin brother, older by seconds. And so my family is lesser. By my own Uncle I was made a bird in a cage. It is not arrogant to see the truth of this world. You and I will never be equal." Naruto was horrified. Neji was clenching one fist tight around his hitai-ate. It was the fist on his injured arm. The blood dripped down his inner elbow to the ground faster as his hand shook with pressure.

"What does it do to you? What does it seal?"

"It is the instrument by which they keep us in our place." Neji spoke like he was delivering a eulogy. Even his veiny-eyes were dead. "We live with the fear that they will use this curse mark to turn out brains to jelly any time they wish. Fear. That is what we live with, every day. And only in death are we free of it. This is how the power of the Byakugan is kept sealed away. Only the Hyuuga possess the secret of our doujutsu, and it is the duty of the branch members to protect that secret, and serve the main branch obediently, without question, for eternity. That is our destiny.

And this match is the same. Your destiny was sealed the moment I was chosen as your opponent. It's your destiny to lose to me." Naruto didn't laugh at him for this. He kind of got it, how it might feel like Neji couldn't make a difference no matter what. And if he couldn't, what chance did Naruto have? Then again…

"Yeah? Then go ahead. Beat me. Your seal is not fair. But that's because it was never your destiny to be trapped. I will prove that destiny has nothing to do with this! And that's why you're right to be mad at your clan." If Naruto could defeat destiny, then Neji had no excuse not to do the same! Neji didn't seem to feel that way, because he growled at Naruto and replaced his hitai-ate with a venomous glare. Venomous by genin standards, that was.

"You're a failure, a ninja that can't even keep himself whole. You impudent little brat. You don't deserve any explanation from me! You don't know what it's like to be branded with a mark that sets you apart. A mark that can never be wiped away!"

Naruto burst out into laughter before he even realized it. It echoed strangely shrill and rough against the walls of the arena. Neji actually flinched away from it. Naruto noticed that some blood flung from between his lips. Idly, he wondered if it was his or Neji's.

"Man, you think you're the only special one around here? Heh." Naruto smirked ruefully. His secret wasn't made for being shared, not here. He wished he could, though. Neji shouldn't have to be alone. "All that crap you said about destiny, you don't even believe it, do you? You call this obedience, telling me about the worst of the Hyuuga clan? You haven't given up yet! And neither will I! You know everyone's weakness, right? Well I'm gonna show you just how wrong you are. People call me a failure. I'll prove 'em wrong. I will defy fate! I will break your seal if it's that last thing I ever do!" Neji scowled and actually turned away from Naruto. This was the dumbest mistake he'd ever seen from a shinobi, turning their back on an enemy. Even if he did have those funky eyes.

"Proctor, I suggest you stop the match. I won't be responsible for what happens to him if he continues."

Even if that enemy was him.

Naruto closed his eyes and reached for that spot, that tricky spot between his stomach and the small of his back and called out deep into himself.

'Kyuubi! Lend me the chakra of a tail!'

A moment of stillness and black, and then there was red over everything he saw. Naruto felt his aching and twisted chakra pathways burn with power bound beneath his skin. It tore through the closed tenketsu points from Neji's attack. Naruto was free. He flipped backwards onto his palm before Neji could do more than whirl around to face him, once, twice, three times and laid the final mark with his hand planted in the dirt. Then he swung his feet under him and ran straight towards Neji, who hastened to meet him right in the middle of Naruto's circle, looking so completely stunned it was almost insulting.

Naruto stopped a step before Neji. Ignoring the boy completely, he jumped a step into the air, barely hovering a few feet above the ground as he rolled into a ball, took a deep breath, plugged his ears, and closed his eyes. He released the chakra to the final mark, in the dead center of the circle where not a moment before he'd laid his foot.

All around Naruto he could feel a strange pressure, then lack, then pressure, then lack again. It sounded like something was cracking inside of his ears, even with them plugged up as best as he could manage with only one hand. The cycle of pressure finally stopped when gravity dropped him to the ground and he released his breath as his touch deactivated the central storage seal he'd laid between the circle of five directed storage seals.

Naruto had learned something pretty cool since the preliminary rounds. See, storage seals were kind of stupid if you didn't tell them exactly what to do. They could store lots and lots of just about anything, but you had to be extra careful to make sure you told them when you wrote them not to store anything too fast, because seals tended to suck stuff in or let it out so quickly it got all twisted if you didn't write in some sort of time limit. So, Naruto had made some storage seals for air, got rid of the time limit, and then put them in a circle so that they basically connected to each other into a bubble where they'd suck in whatever they were told. By making sure the directions they were written to pull from aligned Naruto had managed to, for a second at most, make a space without any air right where he and Neji were fighting. He'd let out all of his breath before he'd set it off, but Neji hadn't. His lungs would've expanded and then crunched and his diaphragm would've gone nuts as the seals frantically cycled to suck in each new input of air. Also, since the air rushing in to fill up the empty space was so fast it made a huge noise and a lot of pressure. Naruto only was okay because he'd prepared himself for it, but Neji had been running at him with lots of straight rigid muscles and panting. He ran straight into Naruto's trap.

In front of him, Neji was laid out on his back out cold. His ears were bleeding, his eyes were surely bloodshot, and his chest was fluttering like he was hyperventilating. As Naruto sat up he watched Neji's breathing slowly even out even as several black-clad figures leapt down and checked the boy's pulse and throat. One looked over to the proctor and raised a thumbs up. Naruto was glad Neji was okay. Although, he'd been right. Neji's shirt was smeared with dirt and blood all over. He should've worn a darker color like Naruto.

The ref guy's senbon was nowhere to be seen as his mouth gaped open at Naruto. The poor man still had his hands over his ears and everything. Slowly, he lowered them as he looked between him and Neji.

"Winner is…Naruto Uzumaki!"

Fuuinjutsu was Naruto's favorite thing in the world. And not just because it was in his blood.

* * *

Kakashi felt every bit of air in his lungs leave his body. Beneath his mask, his blood had left his face. His fingers fumbled as he reached up and shoved his hitai-ate up away from his Sharingan eye, staring down at his student.

There was no mistake. No genjutsu, no transformation jutsu (although that would take some incredible work), nothing. Naruto's left arm was truly just gone.

And that wasn't the only problem.

Naruto's forehead was streaked with dried blood half-sweated off, and fresh blood was slowly oozing from an infected head wound that must be days old. Except a jinchuuriki shouldn't have day-old wounds. He shouldn't have missing toenails, or skinless knuckles, or scrapes all up and down his remaining arm, or skinned knees.

Then again, Kakashi had never heard of a junchuuriki missing a body part, either. Not even a finger.

The stump of Naruto's left arm was facing Kakashi as Naruto stood, unsmiling, staring at Neji. It was eerie, to see the hyper blonde so still and blank. The stump was even worse to see. It was knotted up and deep, leaving no bit of the limb behind. It seemed fully healed, but poorly so, with no evidence of medical intervention that Kakashi could see. If anything it looked like the wound had been chewed on and then just left alone. Kakashi doubted he'd ever see such a scar again. Anyone without Naruto's healing ability would be a corpse if a wound like that went unstitched and ignored. There was no way for Kakashi to tell how old the wound was, what with even the vague idea he'd had of how Naruto's healing worked now nothing but rubble beneath the sickening weight of the still-bleeding cut on his student's forehead.

Kakashi twitched and had a kunai in his hand before he realized that it was Sakura tugging on his flak-jacket. The girl should really know better by now, but just this once he'd let it go. It wasn't her fault he was so on edge. Down the row, Sakura, Sasuke, Ino-Shika-Cho, Asuma, and team 8 were all looking down at Naruto with varying expressions of distress. In the row behind Asuma, Gai was standing up and jogging over to Kakashi with that oddly grim look Gai got almost exclusively on missions. Kurenai was walking with very forced nonchalance towards the Hokage's box.

"Kakashi-sensei! What happened to Naruto?" Sakura asked him with a very shrill voice. Sasuke behind her was alternating between glaring at Kakashi and turning activated eyes to Naruto. Kakashi had never seen the boy look so terrified and confused all at once. Hinata, too, was using her doujutsu to see if the Naruto before them was truly as he appeared. She was crying, so she probably saw the same thing as him. Meanwhile, Shikamaru had obviously given up on his surroundings altogether. Ignoring the panicking Ino and Chouji rapidly approaching Kakashi, the Nara heir was standing to lean on the railing, eyes fixed on Naruto, and hands touching at each fingertip in his deepest thinking posture.

Before Kakashi could start to corral the baby-genin, Gai reached him and Kakashi gladly let himself be pulled over to the side.

"Who did you get for Naruto's training for the month?" whispered Gai into his ear.

"Ebisu. But I heard Jiraiya was planning to train him once he finished his research."

Gai nodded and jogged away. His last look at Kakashi was disappointed, but sympathetic. Kakashi was very familiar with that look, and this time as always he knew down to his bones that he deserved worse.

Kakashi turned back to the frantic blob of Genin in front of him. Asuma was performing a summons, except Kakashi watched aghast as a jounin-level shinobi failed to summon anything, even as he tried again. In the meantime, the remainders of team 8 had joined the clump along with Tenten, who looked very disturbed and also very annoyed. Shikamaru, however, had not moved. His thinking pose was unbroken, and he was leaning his whole body forward towards Naruto. Only his eyes were shifted to the side towards Kakashi. The Nara raised one eyebrow at him before turning back to Naruto with an even deeper furrow between his brows.

"Maa," Kakashi started to the small horde of genin, "don't worry, genin-chans! If anything appears to go wrong, your senseis are ready to stop the match immediately. We'll take care of Naruto." He floppily waved a hand towards them. Baby-nin were like puppies. If you stayed calm, they'd stay calm. If you panicked, they'd panic.

"Hey, Neji!" Kakashi heard echoing from the arena, "You look really nice! Sorry about how dirty I'm gonna get ya! Also I'll probably laugh at you when you're all messed up so sorry in advance! Do your best-ttebayo!"

The genin as a clump ran to the railing and peered over the side. Kakashi used his height to watch over their heads. Naruto was smiling. He'd shouted at the Hyuuga boy with his arm stretched straight out ahead of him to point at Neji. It was a startlingly normal look, given he only had one arm to point with.

"It's really him," whispered a genin from Kakashi's left. It was the Nara. His thinking pose was broken. Instead, he had his hands clasped together in a shaking, bloodless clench. "Naruto," the Nara went on, "what happened to you?"


	2. Past

This is where it all started. One month earlier. Or for Naruto, six months earlier.

* * *

Naruto was walking home alone, so he let his smile vanish for the evening. He'd only 'beaten' Kiba by the skin of his teeth. He was so angry with himself that he could cry, if he was the sort to cry ever.

He couldn't believe he'd been so bad! How'd he always end up dead-last? It was like everything was just easier for everyone else. He wouldn't ever give up, of course! He was gonna be Hokage, no matter what. So he shouldn't feel bad about sucking so bad right now.

Except his eyes kept getting all watery and he kept remembering how close Kiba had been to trouncing him.

Naruto started forward into a dead sprint down the dirty dust road, ignoring all of the civilians who cussed at him or screamed or yelled 'demon' at his dust-trail. He'd go home and eat some ramen, and then everything would be better. He'd prefer Ichiraku's, duh, but he didn't have any money right now. Hadn't had any money since the mission pay from Wave Country. It was always hard to afford food when Kaka-sensei stopped assigning D-missions for them, but he guessed training for the Chunin Exams had been more important. Training hungry just meant he got even more badass!

Mid thought, Naruto's forehead slammed into something warm and tough. He fell backwards and rolled, head slamming into the concrete wall of an alley.

"Damn it!" he yelled, "watch where you're goin-ttebayo!"

Then, a blurry hand appeared palm up just before him.

"I'm so sorry!" called a man's deep voice, "I didn't see you! Are you okay? Here, let me help you up, please."

Standing before Naruto was a man with a Konoha hitai-ate, maybe a year or two younger than Iruka-sensei. He was looking at Naruto with concern in his dark brown eyes, and Naruto stilled, unable to move his eyes from the friendly stranger. Haltingly, Naruto placed his hand in the stranger's own. The stranger smiled and helped Naruto to his feet with an immovable arm, sturdy and reliable. Naruto let go as soon as he was upright, but the stranger took his time removing his hand. His palm was warm, like Iruka-sensei's. Naruto beamed at the cool guy and started dusting off his orange jumpsuit. It was already dirty, but he wanted this guy to see him at least making an effort.

"Hi! My name's Uzumaki Naruto dattebayo! Nice to meet you!" he yelled up at the very tall guy. Tall guy smiled and rubbed at his left bicep.

"Right, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Takashi. It's really wonderful to meet you, Naruto. I was hoping to run into you, actually, but I guess you ran into me instead."

Naruto blinked. "M-me?" he asked, pointing at his face. Takashi nodded with a quirky little grin.

"Right! I saw you in the Chunin Exam preliminaries and I thought your fighting was really amazing. I was hoping you would give me the honor of being your teacher until the examination finals."

"Yes!" Naruto yelled, leaning forward and clenching his fists beneath his chin, "Seriously? I mean, you're gonna teach me some cool jutsus?" Takashi smiled and held out his hand once more.

"Come with me, Naruto-kun, and I'll show you more than a few cool jutsus." Naruto's shoulders relaxed from around his years and his smile relaxed. He was so happy he could feel his eyes scrunching up. After Kaka-sensei had told him he'd be training Sasuke all month, and that he'd be given to that bastard Ebisu, he'd thought he wouldn't get to learn anything before the finals that would help him get revenge on Neji. Now, a super cool guy was actually begging to teach Naruto! Naruto had totally dreamed of this. He giggled and felt his face heat up as he put his hand into Takashi's and followed him down the street.

"Right, I'm going to shunshin us to my apartment so that you can eat dinner while we get started. How does home-made ramen sound?"

"Awesome-ttebayo!" Naruto yelled up at the taller, smiling man, throwing a victory punch into the air. With the hand not holding Naruto's, Takashi started on the handsigns for a shunshin.

Just before Takashi whisked him away, Naruto caught a split second to see, across the street, Shikamaru slowly walking parallel to him, hands in pockets, soft eyes looking up to the sky.

* * *

Takashi's apartment was totally the best. It was a bit messy, but with lots of kunai and ninja wire all over the place and papers pinned all over the walls. Everything was Shinobi stuff, so Takashi must be super cool.

Naruto was sitting at the guy's table slurping up the best ramen he'd ever had outside of Ichiraku's. There's was perfect so this stuff couldn't ever be as good, but it was pretty damn close. Across from him, Takashi was watching him eat with a little smile and his chin resting on his palm. He looked kind of dopey, all sleepy-eyed and slumped over. Naruto smiled a bit at him through a mouthful and Takashi smiled back, which only made Naruto smile more until he was smiling so hard he couldn't even eat anymore!

"Right, Naruto, how about we talk about Konoha. See, I was thinking, you said you want to be Hokage, right?" Naruto licked his lips and gave Takashi a thumb's up.

"You bet! I'm gonna be Hokage someday, dattebayo!" Takashi nodded and rubbed his chin with his thumb and pointer finger.

"Hmm," he said, "well, I think you'd be a pretty amazing Hokage. I bet under your leadership Konoha would be much better. For one thing, you could make it so that people are nicer to each other, regardless of differences. You could put power with the people that really have the best for Konoha in mind. Does that sound about right?"

Naruto gaped at his new friend. He could feel his face getting super hot and he rubbed at the back of his head. "You…you really, uh, think so? Like, really?"

Takashi smiled and grabbed Naruto's hand in his own. "Yes. I really do." Then, he shot to his feet and dragged Naruto up with him. "So come on! We've got work to do. I'm going to take you to the best training ground possible. This way, Naruto-kun." He walked Naruto into his living room with long strides that Naruto had to jog a bit to keep up with. The living room was so different from the rest of the place that Naruto was stopped dead in his tracks. Takashi just walked on without him, then turned and gestured to the floor of the room.

"This," he said, "is Fuuinjutsu, the most powerful Shinobi art ever known." On the floor of the living room was a massive red spiral, wider than Naruto was tall. Nine lines of neatly painted characters radiated from the spiral, evenly spaced and equally long. Naruto, although he couldn't understand any of it, was enraptured. His eyes drank in the massive seal, and he felt a wrenching need to both run forward and turn back, an urge which led him to taking only a single step forward into the room and then halting. "This seal takes the people inside to another world connected to our own through chakra. One where we can help you to gain the power you need to become Hokage someday. It'll be hard, but I believe that you can do it, Naruto. And I'll be with you every step of the way." Naruto tore his eyes away from the beautiful seal in front of him. Takashi was watching him nervously with one hand outstretched, practically begging Naruto with his eyes.

"Will, ano…" Naruto stopped, scratching at his ugly whisker marks. "Will it take us out of Konoha? Because, I'm not, I don't think, supposed to leave."

"Naruto-kun," Takashi admonished, "we're not really leaving Konoha, not so long as the seal is here. I promise this will be wonderful, Naruto. I mean, I'm going with you, right?" Naruto nodded, finally. He had one option for getting a teacher, and this person was really cool and fed him ramen and knew fuuinjutsu and believed he could be Hokage someday.

"Will you teach me Fuuinjutsu?" Naruto couldn't help but ask.

"Of course!" said Takashi. "I'm so glad you want to learn it! Sealing is very pretty, right?" Naruto smiled at last, and nodded as he walked forward and put his hand back in Takashi's. He'd never held hands with someone so much before. It was kind of nice.

Takashi pulled Naruto closer, so that they both stood at the center of the spiral. He wrapped up Naruto's hand more firmly in his own, then held out both of their hands right in front of them and flat. Naruto felt a weird wriggling of chakra in his fingertips a moment before Takashi took a deep breath and called out into the room "Fuuin!"

The seal lit up green beneath them, green like leaves in sunlight, and Naruto gasped as his feet hovered a bit off the floor and everything felt much lighter all of a sudden. It was like he was floating on light. Then, the tingling in his fingertips went everywhere and the light flashed so bright he had to close his eyes.

In a small apartment in Konoha, a room went dark as two shinobi vanished into thin air. As soon as they were gone, the seal they had been standing on, too, faded away.


	3. Present 2

Present

Naruto snorted up a lick of blood trying to escape his nose. That seal had not felt good at all. His eyes were stinging and dry. Not to mention his throat hurt so bad it was getting hard to ignore.

For the first time since he arrived, Naruto looked up at the crowds, scratching at his whisker marks and slouching a little. Kaka-sensei was in the stands to his right, surrounded by, oh yay, basically everyone his own age that he'd ever met. Sasuke-teme was right there, leaning on the railing and glaring at him with a gaping mouth. Naruto sighed and jogged over to the bit of wall beneath Kaka-sensei and used his hand as well as his feet to climb up. See, he could just walk, but he hated the idea of having his head so far away from the wall. It was like sticking out his neck and begging to get his head chopped off! Like a chicken. Using his one hand meant he could shimmy up the wall nice and close and have an easier escape if he needed it. Of course, nothin' happened this time and he got up to the railing easy-peasy. He squirmed his way through the gap between the rails and looked right up into the weird face of Kaka-sensei.

Naruto twitched his arm upwards, almost about to ruffle the back of his head, but then his arm would be used up and Sakura-chan seriously looked like she might hit him. Instead, Naruto put his palm flat against the floor and used it to help prop himself up in his seat on the floor by Kaka-sensei's feet. Kaka-sensei was staring down at him, still, with his eye open so wide it almost connected his hitai-ate to his mask.

"Kakashi-sensei, water? Please?" Naruto croaked up at his sensei. He hated asking, hated it so much, but he was so thirsty he'd totally lick Kaka-sensei's sandals for a drink of water right now. A green canteen passed into his range of vision, held by who-cares-not-Naruto, and Naruto had grabbed it and started choking it down before he even considered if it was safe. The water smelled of nothing, and it was just on the right side of cool. He gulped the water down in huge cheek-puffed mouthfuls, reveling in the drips that trailed down his chin to soak his filthy tank-top. He didn't stop drinking until he finished the canteen. When he lowered the canteen and gasped for breath, he startled slightly to see Kaka-sensei had knelt down so he was eye-level with Naruto. Naruto twitched back and regretted it right away. All of that water was not settling well, and he was pretty sure he was going to puke all over his sensei in about five seconds. Kaka-sensei leaned forward slightly with a hand extended towards Naruto. Naruto leaned away from the hand and scrunched his eyes shut.

"Breath through it, Naruto, if you puke you'll just be more dehydrated." Naruto nodded a tiny bit and tried to breath normally and ignore how his stomach wanted to work backwards.

"Naruto!" came a scream to Naruto's left. Naruto tensed all over, jerking his now-open eyes to the source of the sound and extending his hand slightly towards it, palm out. Kaka-sensei twitched in the same direction, eye firmly on Naruto's face. The voice was from Sakura, who was either confused or trying to set him on fire with her eyes. "What was that? How did you learn to do all of that stuff? When did you get good at fighting? And why are you so gross? Oh, and yeah, where is your arm!?" Sakura was waving her hands around as she ranted, and as soon as she finished she took a quick step towards Naruto. Naruto slouched, using the motion to move away from Sakura, and let his leg start to bounce. His fist was clenched, hard, and resting against his stomach which had yet to quite settle.

"Sakura!" called Kaka-sensei, "That's enough! Everyone but Sasuke, go sit down. Sasuke, get into the arena, now." Kaka-sensei was growling on each word, and even though his face was all covered the bits that did show seemed pissed. Slowly, and with many glances at Naruto, the crowd obeyed, with Sasuke being the last to leave. At least, that's what Naruto had thought until Kaka-sensi looked up over Naruto's head. "You too, Nara."

Naruto whipped around to see Shikamaru, leaning against the railing, staring at him his hands laced together in front of his mouth. He was staring at Naruto like he was staring at a book, or a map, with focused eyes that were a million miles away. Shikamaru sighed, and then addressed Naruto. "So troublesome, Naruto," he said. Naruto couldn't help it. He cringed, furiously scratching his stupid whisker marks, and looked away to see if Sasuke had gotten into the arena yet. He heard Shikamaru inhale sharply. Footsteps started past Naruto and it took everything he had not to look up from Shikamaru's feet to look at his face. Then, Shikamaru took the choice away from him by kneeling down like Kaka-sensei. "Naruto, the situation is troublesome. Not you. In this instance, I mean. You're, um, not troublesome, okay?"

Naruto bared his teeth and met Shikamaru's eyes for the first time since he'd gotten home. Jabbing a finger into Shikamaru's chest, he yelled right into those dark, focused eyes. "I'm not troublesome ever, yanno! I'm only trouble when I wanna be! So, eto, if you don't wanna deal with my troublesomeness-" Naruto cut himself off, yanking his finger back in and coughing a few times, "then, then, then we've got somethin' in common dattebayo! So tell me somethin' I don't know, Shikamaru!" Shikamaru's eyes had finally gone all fuzzy, and his lips were slightly parted. He shoved his hands into his pockets just as Kaka-sensei snapped his fingers in front of his face and ushered Shikamaru away from Naruto, scootching into the space Shikamaru had just occupied.

"Naruto," Kakas-sensei hurriedly said, "I don't know what condition you are in right now, but I know it isn't good. I do not want you fighting in your next match. Whether it's Sasuke or Gaara, you are not prepared to face another opponent." Naruto snorted and rubbed the back of his neck. Kakashi-sensei was sitting on his stump-side.

"So you think I can't do it, huh? Well I guess I'll just have to show ya. I learned great without you, yanno! It doesn't matter if I'm, eh, tired or whatever. I'll try anyways!" Kaka-sensei sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

"Naruto," he grumbled, "that's not what I meant. You're injured. You should be in the hospital."

"I'm not allowed. And, hey, you think missing an arm is an injury? I don't need it! It's uh, ano, unnecessary! I'm still a shinobi and I'm just as good a fighter-ttebayo! You'll see. Then, then, if I win, you won't be able to get rid of me." Kaka-sensei sighed even longer and deeper. He looked exhausted.

"I can't stop you. At this point in the chunin-exams it's not my decision."

Naruto nodded and tucked his arm behind his head to lean on as he looked out into the arena. "Ano, Kakashi-sensei, that is it's like, um, do ya, maybe eh…"

"Spit it out, Naruto."

"Have you got anything to eat? I'm starving!" Kakashi-sensei wordlessly tossed a rations bar at Naruto, who caught it quickly in his hand and used his teeth to rip off the wrapper. He devoured it as Kakashi-sensei walked away to stand with a clump of adults, adults Naruto was pretty sure were the Jounin-senseis for his classmates. Also the weird green dude was there. When Naruto peeked over at them, the green dude gave Naruto a thumbs up and a grin so shiny it looked like he'd eaten a lightbulb. Naruto quickly looked away back to Sasuke and Gaara down in the arena.

The referee guy looked like he was about to start the match. The circle Naruto had sealed was a bit dented, and the perfect circle in the middle of the arena looked out of place, especially with Sasuke and Gaara standing on either side of it right across from each other. Sasuke was glaring and settling into a stance, but Gaara was just standing there with his hands over his ears. He wasn't even looking at Sasuke.

The match began and Sasuke immediately jumped back away from Gaara, holding his hands at the ready. He probably was planning some flashy jutsu, was what Naruto assumed. He didn't start it, though, instead he just stopped and stared at Gaara. Gaara hadn't moved. He was still standing there, only his muttering was getting loud enough for Naruto to kind of hear. It sounded like he was calling for his Mother.

Sasuke, impatient as always, couldn't wait much longer. He ran forward, with his usual obnoxiously perfect form, apparently deciding to get into a taijutsu match instead of using a ninjutsu. Sasuke reared back to punch Gaara right in the face. Gaara didn't even notice he'd approached. Then, instead of sand bursting forth to deflect Sasuke's blow, Sasuke's fist landed against Gaara's cheekbone with a sharp crack. Gaara fell to the ground, limp, and sent up a tiny cloud of dust as his head lolled bonelessly onto the dirt. Sasuke actually took a few steps back and dropped his guard slightly. He was gaping down at the Suna-nin, just like most of the stadium.

Across the stadium, three faces in particular were making a ruckus. It was Gaara's genin team and Jounin-sensei. The guy, the one who looked like a cat with purple paint, was shouting something about impossibleness and evacuation. The girl was shouting at the Jounin-sensei, asking about what the hell just happened.

Eventually, the stadium calmed and a few Suna paramedics came and scooped Gaara onto a stretcher. Naruto sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, pouting slightly. He guessed that told him how the Ichibi was doing.


	4. Past 2

The Past - Weeks 0-2

Naruto opened his eyes. Wincing at the still bright light, he clung to Takashi's hand with both of his own. It was late in the evening a minute ago, so Naruto was pretty confused to find himself outside in the midday sunshine out of nowhere.

"Welcome to the Summoning Realm," said Takashi, releasing his hands, "the home of all living chakra."

Naruto gasped, raising one hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun as he drank in his surroundings. This place was, no question, the most beautiful place ever. Nothing could possibly be better than this place. Not even Konoha.

Takashi released Naruto's hands and threw his arms into the air, laughing in joy. There was nothing in sight until the horizon but for hills of grass so wide-reaching that Naruto could see the banks of wind sweeping over the distance like ripples across a lake. The edges of the world were feathered with mountains higher than Naruto had imagined anything could reach, even the clouds. And most awesome, at the very furthest reaches of where the sun met the earth, an evergreen tree, bristling and glowing, scattered its needles through the sky, taller than the mountains around it, piercing the sun as it set to cast Naruto and Takashi into a world dappled with shadow and sun alike. Naruto felt like he was being pulled toward that tree, unable to look away even as Takashi whooped and threw himself down the hill, running with his arms held out like a child. Naruto was frozen. He'd never seen just how big the world could be. That he and Takashi were the only people in sight for what must be hundreds of miles was hard to swallow. He should feel more alone than ever, but instead Naruto felt like he was home.

"Naruto-kun!" Takashi yelled up at him from the base of the hill. He was beaming, hands cupped around his mouth. "Come on! It's gonna take us weeks to reach that tree as it is! We've got a few hours of light left, so let's hustle!" Naruto gasped and ran down the hill as quickly as he could. He didn't want Takashi to leave him behind. He skidded to a halt next to Takashi and pouted when his new friend ruffled his hair. "That tree out there? You see it, right?"

Naruto looked up to Takashi and incredulously scrunched one eye shut. "Duh!" he yelled, "who could miss it?" Takashi just laughed harder.

"We've got about a month to get there, and it'll take all that time even if we walk all day every day. We'll have to train on the way, alright?" Naruto nodded furiously, then punched the air.

"Yatta! This is gonna be amazing dattebayo!" Takashi snickered and wrapped an arm around Naruto's shoulders, pulling him forward into a brisk walk towards the horizon.

"I know, it's a miracle, right? I never thought I'd get here and now we're so close. You're going to learn so much Naruto-kun, I promise. This place is perfect. From here, we can really make a difference."

"What is this place, anyways?" Naruto asked, jogging every few steps to keep up with Takashi's really long legs. Takashi made a small 'ah' noise.

"Right! I didn't explain very well, did I? Well, do you know what a summons is?"

Naruto shook his head. "Not really."

"Well, some shinobi have signed a contract with a summons species, so that they can use a bit of chakra to pull an animal companion from this world to our world. The animal has to agree, at first, and it takes more chakra the bigger the animal. Also, most summoning contracts travel in clans, so it can be hard to find one to sign, right? Some shinobi manage to reverse-summon themselves here and get a contract that way, but it's really dangerous. So, we used a seal instead, right? That means we can stay longer."

"Wow," said Naruto, "so this place is full of animals that belong to ninja?"

"Not quite right," said Takashi, "it's more like everything on this side is made of chakra, including the animals. If you can get some of that chakra to like you, then it might agree to help you out, but that doesn't make the chakra yours. Not unless you…well, but that's irrelevant, right?" Naruto wasn't sure what Takashi meant with that 'irrelevant' stuff, but he nodded anyways. "Right. We're not here for summons animals, though. We're here to train you! And once we reach that tree, you'll know lots of cool things, and then we can use the tree to get you and I back to Konoha for you to show everybody just who's going to be Hokage."

"Me!" Naruto yelled out over the plains, "I'm gonna be Hokage-ttebayo!" Takashi laughed.

"Right!"

* * *

Once it got dark, Takashi called for them to stop for the night and sleep. Naruto flopped over onto the grass and huffed. He was so tired! Sleeping on the dirt wasn't going to be super nice. Naruto felt a thump to his left and turned his head over, opening his eyes to see Takashi looking at him with a little smile. His new friend had laid down next to him in the grass, with his hands folded over his chest.

"Psst," whispered Takashi, "Naruto. Look up." Naruto frowned and pointed his face back upwards and gasped.

Above them was the night sky. Naruto could have been back in Konoha, he knew all of the constellations, but the sky had never been so clear back home. The difference alongside familiarity drew his eyes like magnets. He could see everything. He'd never known, but it turned out the night sky wasn't black at all. It was blue and purple and deep with streams of color and shadow. The stars had always reminded him of little holes punched into a piece of fabric, before tonight. Here the stars looked like snowflakes that had fallen upwards. They looked crystalline, glowing and cold, but touchable. They weren't flat, weren't little speckles of light, they were stars. Round, whole, stars floating like clouds in a sky so massive it bent at the edges. Naruto was inflating inside with every breath of air, inhaling that starlight until he, too, bent at the edges.

He and Takashi stayed there forever. The moon stayed near the mountains, not so much rising as circling them. Naruto shivered in his jumpsuit as the moon gained a bit of height with each passing look.

"Here," whispered Takashi. Naruto glanced over and saw him pulling out a scroll with a seal painted on, which he opened, poked with one finger-tip, and then pulled apart to reveal a puff of smoke and two sleeping bags and two ration bars, just like magic. "We'll cook proper meals tomorrow," said Takashi, passing him one sleeping bag and one bar. Naruto nodded. He didn't want to talk and let the starlight out of his chest.

In silence, he and Takashi sat up and laid out their bedding side-by-side. Takashi had his ration bar half sticking out of his mouth, but Naruto choked his down as fast as possible and then threw himself back down onto his bed, staring back up at the night sky. It looked different, looking again, yet it looked exactly the same. Nothing had changed, but he felt so different looking at it.

"It's like," Naruto whispered, "like I'm not alone."

Naruto flinched and clasped a hand over his mouth, peering over at Takashi to see if his new friend was laughing at him or not. Takashi, though, had nothing to say. He was already asleep next to him. Naruto relaxed and went back to watching the stars.

He couldn't remember falling asleep. In his dreams he never looked away.

* * *

Daytime was weird, in this place.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. He and Takashi were walking through the field, and the blades of grass were tickly against his toes. Everything interesting was far away at the horizon, all that was around here was grass and wind. It was pretty, sure, but it seemed like Takashi was actively keeping them away from the forests and mountains in the distance. For someone in a hurry, he sure was picky about how they got to the tree. Naruto sighed and crossed his arms behind his head, pouting and trying to imagine all the cool stuff Sasuke was learning while he was walking through a field. Takashi was walking and smiling and looking around as if this was the most interesting place ever. It was way too quiet.

"I don't get it! How can the tree be so far away? It's right there!"

"It only looks as close as it does because it's so big. We're still at least two weeks away, right."

"So, we just go East for two weeks?"

"No, that's not East. The Sun doesn't set in the same direction, here. Only the tree can be trusted."

"But, if the tree's in the same place, then that means the Sun's rising and setting in the same place!"

"Exactly!"

Naruto frowned over at the sun. It was midday, it had to be because they'd been walking forever, but the Sun was still just hovering above the feather-mountains. It'd risen, gotten just above the tree, and then started on the same route it moved every day. Instead of up and over, it went all the way around. Then, it got to the same place at the tree and set. It was funky. And then, at night, the moon did the exact same thing! At least, Naruto thought it did. He didn't stay up quite that late.

"But why?" Naruto pouted up at Takashi. Takashi grinned down at him and grabbed one of Naruto's hands into his own. It was super sweaty.

"Well, this place goes sort of perpendicular to our world," said Takashi.

"Perpendicular?"

"Ah, right," Takashi replied, "well, you'll have to know these things in order to learn sealing. Perpendicular means that two lines meet at a right angle. Think of it like a clock. See, if the tree is 12, then the line from 12 to 6," Takashi pointed forward and backward, "meets the line from 3 to 9" Takashi pointed left to right, "at a right angle. Right like this," Takashi pointed at twelve and 3, "like the corner of a room. Two walls meet perpendicularly, rightly."

"Oh," said Naruto, "so it's like, the opposite of parallel. Why didn't ya just say that?"

Takashi stopped dead, clenching down on Naruto's hand and staring down at him. Naruto stared back up at him with his eyes scrunched nearly shut. Takashi shook his head slowly and then looked forward and started them walking again.

"Right," Takashi finally said, "I'll start teaching you how to write a storage seal. It can't do a lot, it just holds things, but it makes carrying supplies much easier. You'll be able to carry your own tent. Useful, right?"

"Aww," Naruto scratched at his whisker marks, "can't you teach me something cool?" Takashi's hand squeezed his again. Naruto kind of wished he'd let go.

"Gotta walk before you can run, right?"

* * *

That night, when Naruto and Takashi stopped for dinner, there was still light out. Takashi, after making some pretty yummy stew, had pulled out a bunch of paper, ink, and brushes, and started teaching Naruto the most complicated stuff he'd ever seen in his life. He'd never focused on something so hard, but he just couldn't look away. The lines Takashi was drawing were so beautiful, and the first time that Naruto realized why Takashi was putting one line against another Naruto felt like he'd burst inside with how stunningly lovely it was, how cool he was to know how chakra was moving through a line of ink and what it would do. Then Takashi had handed him the brush and told him to write.

The first line Naruto created was black, ruffled on the edges like the mountains ruffled the horizon, and ended in splintered splots. The chakra moving through the swipe was scrunchy, and the lone line was, according to Takashi, 'wrong in every way.'

Takashi would have to pry Naruto's ink brush from his cold, dead hands. He couldn't stop smiling, jiggling his leg and flushing all over. Takashi had smiled a little, and then gone right back to yelling about what he did wrong, without even once hitting Naruto for being dumb.

"No! The dash goes here, right? This is where the seal delineates the contents. Unless you want the whole thing to blow up-"

* * *

"-without damaging what's inside, you need to add a sensor line here."

Naruto had been working on the core of the seal for days now. He'd practiced things like kunai, or punching for this long, but he'd never sat down and tried to learn something for long.

"The character for the sensing, it's gotta point, um, out right?"

"You got it, Naruto-kun! Now, what characters could work for sensing?"

"Umm, ano, ano, maybe, um, like light? I think light would fit, but if it sensed light it would go off almost all the time, wouldn't it? Like from sun and stuff. And it can't just be chakra, because you told me I'm not supposed to write chakra anywhere yet." Naruto scratched his whisker marks and twiddled his paintbrush. His fingernails hit a blob of clotted ink on his cheek. Takashi nodded and smiled, and Naruto beamed back up at him.

"Right, chakra is a character you're a few years away from using. Sensors can be defined by whatever you have the skill to write. I've always favored pressure-"

* * *

"- but not too much pressure or you'll bend the bristles outward. A messy line is a messy seal, right?"

Naruto's brush was simple, white along the body and black at the tips, like fur. Takashi had told him on day one that a messy brush was the mark of a really bad sealer. Ink was only for the tips. Naruto had done his best, but getting enough ink to make the whole line and keeping his brush clean and not using so much ink that it'd splat all over the place was super hard. Takashi said he was getting better, but then he'd keep saying over and over 'a messy line is a messy seal' and then making him start over. Naruto could tell it was bad, it looked bad and it felt bad with his chakra. He didn't need to hear it so often!

"Do that again, Naruto-kun, but this time don't-"

* * *

"-do that again! You could have sucked us into that seal like so much organic sludge, right! Seals are stupid, you have to tell them how much time to take, and distance over times makes velocity, and velocity means acceleration, and a mass undergoing acceleration means force. Do you want to have an approaching-infinite acceleration implementing an approaching-infinite force on a finite mass?"

"Uh…what?"

"Right. Right, so velocity is like, traveling from one end of Konoha to the other in one day versus one hour. Traveling in one hour is faster, right? So that means it's a higher velocity. Acceleration is like how quickly you start running, if you start with a jog and then ease into running you've got a low acceleration. The bigger acceleration, the more force something has. Like throwing a kunai, the faster you throw the deeper it goes into the target. A storage seal is the target, and whatever you're sealing is the kunai. If you seal it too fast, then it bends or dulls or breaks altogether. So you have to decide how fast you want the kunai to go."

"Wait, are you saying that when stuff goes fast it gets squishy? But, but that'd mean that there's stuff in the way that it's gotta push against, like swimming."

Takashi stared at him for a moment then chuckled and shook his head. "You really never cease to surprise, Naruto-kun. That's exactly right. Air, like we breathe, has mass and density just like water or stone. We're just used to it. Birds push on the air with their wings to fly, and we pull on it to breathe. And when you seal something, it has to travel through the air. And if it goes too fast, the air makes it bend."

"Wow," Naruto breathed, "That sounds super weird. Like, that's not how I got taught anything. Are you sure? Like, is some air thicker or thinner? Is there anywhere without anything? Like, is there 'nothing' anywhere?"

"Wow indeed," Takashi muttered, "Right, well, some air is thicker or thinner, but when that happens you should hold your breath, because the air is probably not safe. I've heard about the idea of a space without air, but it's really hard to make. It's called a vacuum. You'll probably never deal with one, not really. The kind of seal it would take to make an empty space would pull apart everything around it."

"Oh!" Naruto yelled, "Cuz' air is like water, right? So if a space is empty it'll try really hard to go in. And you said air can push or bend stuff, right? So if it really wants to go somewhere then it'd be like a- a- a whirlpool!"

"Right! Exactly right. You're really somethin' Naruto-kun. You don't want to make a whirlpool, so you don't-"

* * *

"-need to worry, Naruto-kun. I know only learning one seal seems like it's not a lot, but you've learned more than I ever could have imagined when we started two weeks ago. You're a real Uzumaki, alright."

Naruto and Takashi were finally closer to the Tree. They were stopping later and later in the night, so Takashi was making him practice his storage seal while they walked. Naruto couldn't even make clean lines while sitting still. Hearing something about his family, that made him jerk his line into completely the wrong direction. Naruto ignored the crackling of bad chakra in his ink, and whipped his head around to stare at Takashi, fists clenched so hard they were shaking.

"Real…Uzumaki? Why would you say that?" Takashi frowned and looked over at him, giving him a quick glance from foot to forehead.

"Because the Uzumaki used to be amazing. Before they were all killed. All except your parents."

"My parents? What, what happened?" Naruto's breath was even. He wasn't shaking, wasn't talking funny, and he especially wasn't looking at Takashi. The grass in front of him looked very interesting.

"I don't know," he heard Takashi murmur, voice low and soft. "I have no idea who your parents were, but I know an Uzumaki when I see one. The chakra, the talent for sealing, the joy and laughter. The Uzumaki were a vibrant clan, the clan most blessed and skilled of the Hidden Villages before Uzushiogakure was wiped out. Kiri and Konoha's biggest sin was the end of Uzushio. You've really never been told?"

"No," Naruto mumbled, "nobody's told me nothin'. Tell me more? About the, my, um…"

"Uzushiogakure, right? Uzushio was an island village, in the land of Whirlpool. I've heard said that it was the most beautiful land in our world. That the streets were wrought from red stones, and the buildings themselves were carved into the hill down to the edge of the ocean. The sunset into the sea would burn the whole town crimson and gold. They carved seals into every wall, every column, every brick. The village could withstand an army with the power of sealing they buried deep into the earth. The Uzumaki were the only clan, the brilliant spine of the best of the shinobi nations. They were vivacious, with bright hair and eyes and loud voices, massive pools of chakra they infused into seals they pierced into their skin. Gems from every earlobe, tattoos on every arm, and the glow of light and happiness, genuine and truthful, in every whirlpool eye. Their mark was the swirl, like you have on your jumpsuit, like I and every chunin has on their flak-jacket. The crimson whirlpool."

"Why would Konoha-nin have the Uzumaki crest? Did they steal it?"

"Yes. When Kiri took their army, and destroyed Uzushio in a week-long siege, Konoha never came. Konoha and Uzushio were sister villages, always close, always devoted. The Uzumaki women married into Konoha, and vice versa. I can only assume you were born of such a union. When Konoha realized what they'd allowed to occur, they took the spiral onto themselves as a mark of their shame. And yet, now, no one even remembers. And the last Uzumaki wears his crest without even knowing the meaning behind his birth right."

"Last…Uzumaki? The very last?" Naruto pressed his fists against his stomach. The paper in his hand was crumbled. The brush was perfectly fine.

"I've searched for a long time. I've found shinobi with bright hair, shinobi with oceans of chakra, even shinobi from Whirlpool country. But none of them were real. None of them were full of life, like you. You're the only one that was right. That's when I knew, I had to bring you here. Sealing, these seals I'm teaching you, are in your blood."


	5. Past 3

The Past - 1 Month

"We'll reach the tree early tomorrow."

Naruto looked up at Takashi from his seat in the grass. He and Takashi were working on storage seals even now, almost four whole weeks after meeting. The only thing Naruto had managed to seal so far was plain old air. Takashi kept telling him not to be disappointed, but it was hard not to get frustrated by how every little mistake added up to make everything go wrong. Still, Naruto mustered up a smile at Takashi's news.

"Awesome! What're we gonna do when we get there?" Takashi giggled and grabbed Naruto around the waist, hugging him tight to his much taller frame. Naruto grumbled and squirmed until Takashi released him. He'd given up his jumpsuit a few days ago, and the shorts and tank top Takashi had loaned him were much thinner. It helped with the heat, but it also left Naruto feeling pretty exposed.

"That, Naruto-kun," Takashi whispered into his ear, "is a surprise." Then the man flopped backwards, staring up at the sky with a goofy smile on his face. He had his arms crossed over his chest like some sort of mummy Naruto would see on late-night television. "What do you think of Konoha, Naruto?"

Naruto scratched his whisker marks and frowned down at Takashi. His friend was still staring up at the night sky, and the fire cast a shadow over his eyes that Naruto couldn't see through. "Well, ano…" Naruto stalled, "Konoha is my home? Yeah, so I like it a lot. What'sit matter?"

"Rightly, Konoha is my home too. I was born there, raised there. I think that Konoha broke something right in me. Something only an Uzumaki could heal." Takashi sighed deeply as Naruto stared. "Everyone there is so full of hatred. We'll do anything, kill anyone, mothers and children, right, just for the sake of living another bland, meaningless day. Uzushio meant something. Joy, and truth, and beauty, and innovation. Things worth killing for. I'm just as bad, Naruto-kun. I hate almost everything. But I love you, right. So I guess, even if I am cursed to be dark and lifeless inside, maybe I can make the world a little bit better for you. Then, maybe, I'll be able to keep you. Protect you from the hatred inside you." Naruto bit down hard on his lip and stared down at the ground.

He didn't know what to say.

"Sh-shut up!" he yelled. "Konoha isn't like that! And neither are you! You're super nice, not full of hate! It's your choice who you wanna be!" Naruto pounded his fists against the ground before throwing dirt onto the fire. The smoke curled up into the air in messy chunks of spirals. Naruto reflexively tried to find the shapes of seals in the smoke, but the night air broke apart the whorls too fast for anything to be written in the air. Takashi giggled a little more. Naruto hated that laugh. Takashi laughed so much, and Naruto never knew what he found so damn funny.

Takashi loved him, though. That meant a lot. So Naruto would have to stay by his side and help him feel better. He'd start tomorrow.

"Thank you, Naruto."

* * *

Naruto and Takashi crested the hill at last, finally able to see the entirety of the Tree. A single strip of bark was the size of the Hokage Monument, and the roots were just as tall. Yet, even here at the bottom, tiny clusters of branches and newborn trees were growing, leaving the valley around the tree as lush as any forest near Konoha.

"We made it…" Takashi whispered next to him. "We made it!" Takashi laughed and grabbed Naruto's hand, rushing them to the base of the tree with a shunshin before Naruto even had time to take in the massive Tree in front of him. Because seriously, this was a capital 't' Tree.

"Takashi!" Naruto shouted, wrenching his hand away from his friend's. Takashi ignored him, and instead started muttering to himself under his breath like a crazy person.

"By the triple-twisted root…next to the mark…ah ha!" Takashi jolted forwards and planted one palm onto a random spot on the Tree trunk, and Naruto enviously scowled as a seal spread inklessly from beneath Takashi's palm. As soon as the seal flashed, a doorway appeared to the right of Takashi's hand. Naruto gasped.

"Wow! Takashi, how the hell didya know to do that? What's inside of there? Are we going in-ttebayo?"

Takashi smiled down at him, with eyes so bright he looked like it was his birthday and this was his present. Then, he placed one finger over his lips, smirked at Naruto, and gently ushered him inside.

This place was holy. Naruto took deep breaths and let starlight bend him at the edges.

Inside the tree it was nighttime. Not just dark, but nighttime, with stars and everything. Only inside the tree, the stars were green, and Naruto could reach them. Scattered across the walls, the ceiling, even the floor, tiny patches of steady green glow gave Naruto just enough light to see he was at the bottom of a spiraling cavern, one that stretched so high darkness swallowed the edges entirely, leaving Naruto standing alone on a floating island of stone-like wood. His only point of reference was the starlight. Naruto reached up and caught a tiny green glow between his palms, cupping it gently and gasping at the warmth it radiated. As soon as it touched his skin, the glow went just the slightest bit lighter. Naruto slowly pulled his palms away and beamed as the little star floated away, drifting up the tree.

"Shit!" Naruto whipped around when Takashi shouted. His friend was frantically patting his arm, which had a shiny red spot on it that was already blistering over. A little green star was drifting down from near his elbow. The doorway that should be behind him was gone.

"Takashi!" Naruto yelled. He jogged over, but Takashi waved him off. Naruto hovered uncertainly in front of the scowling man. "It's nothing, Naruto-kun. Be careful not to touch any of the fox fire, alright? It burns just like any other kind of fire does."

"Eto, what's fox fire?" Naruto asked, nervously twiddling his fingers. His very not-burned fingers.

"It's not important," Takashi huffed. "Now come on. We've got a long way to climb." Naruto nodded and kept his mouth shut, crossing his arms behind his head so he wouldn't get tempted to touch anything else. This place didn't feel right to talk in.

Naruto led the way up the winding pathway up the inside of the tree. More than once, he was about to step into empty air but a little green 'fox fire' would float right where he was about to step and he'd pull his foot away. Behind him, Takashi was grumbling and huffing every few minutes. Naruto had the painful realization that he was probably just as annoying as Takashi when he did that with his team.

He wondered what Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-teme were doing. Had Sasuke mastered his Sharingan yet? And what about Sakura-chan, she probably wasn't doing any training at all without their sensei around to make her. Hinata-chan was probably still in the hospital, along with Bushy-brows. Neji must be training super hard. Naruto wondered if he trained with his dad, or if the Hyuuga had some sort of other thing going on. They seemed kind of weird, and they had a doujutsu so they probably needed special training like Sasuke. In fact, all of the Konoha-nin except for Naruto who were going to be fighting had some sort of clan specialty thing. Neji had his freaky eyes, and so did Sasuke. Shino had his bugs. And Shikamaru had his shadows.

Naruto smiled when he imagined what Shikamaru was doing right now. His sensei must be trying so hard to get him to train, but Shikamaru would just laze around in the grass and watch the clouds go by. Sometimes, Naruto swore that Shikamaru put more effort into being lazy than it would take to just train and get it over with! Shikamaru was pretty smart, being able to do stuff like that and be a really cool shinobi. His shadows were so much cooler than the Sharingan or whatever, that's what Naruto thought. Almost as cool as sealing.

Oh. Sealing was an Uzumaki clan technique. Not exactly, but Takashi had said it was in his blood. So, even though he wasn't good enough to use it yet, he still had something from his clan, just like the others. It wasn't as flashy as eyeballs or swarms of bugs, but it was so much more awesome. And it was really hard to understand and figure out how to use. Shikamaru, with his shadows, would probably understand sealing the best out of anybody Naruto knew.

"We're here."

Naruto stopped and looked back over his shoulder. Takashi was gesturing ahead of them, and Naruto turned back around and saw a weird sort of doorway only just starting to gather up fox fire around the edges. Naruto jumped a little as Takashi brushed by him and grabbed his hand on the way.

"Put your hand against the door, Naruto-kun," he said. Naruto pressed the palm Takashi was holding the wrist of up against the doorway. "It needs a bit of your blood. Hold still." Takashi had a kunai in his other hand. Naruto felt his eyes bug out and his wrist twitch, but Takashi had already sliced a tiny notch into the side of his hand, and when Naruto flinched away it smeared over the doorway. Takashi released his hand and grimaced at him for a quick moment, then turned back to the doorway with hungry eyes.

For a few seconds, Naruto thought nothing would happen. Naruto was just about ready to start yelling at Takashi for cutting him, but the doorway shuddered and Naruto's breath hitched. Inch by inch, the doorway cracked straight down the middle and slid away into its own frame, leaving a hole brimming with light.

"Sunlight?" Naruto whispered. Except, that didn't sound quite right. Takashi didn't answer, he just walked ahead into the room, and Naruto followed after him. Takashi stopped right inside the doorway, but Naruto walked forward a few steps further. His heart was pulling him inwards, towards the unknowable feature at the center of the Tree.

The room was circular, following the edge of the tree, and massive just like the outside. There was no more fox fire here, no more stars, which made sense because this room held the Sun. At the center of it all, with tree-rings orbiting it like ripples in a pond, a tree made of glass stretched up, so far it faded out of sight into nothing but sunlight, bright enough Naruto had to look away. Where the glass connected to the floor there was only one massive tube, wider around than Naruto and Takashi together. The glass tree did not begin to branch until it was so tall that it must be level with the clouds. Naruto shivered and held his fingers up towards that light. Because the light came from inside the glass tree within a tree. Behind the glass sunlight as thick as honey, fading at the edges into the green of fox fire, was flowing upwards into the sky.

With every beat of Naruto's thunderous heartbeat, pumping through his ears and throat and chest, the light thrust upwards higher through the branches of the glass tree. Tiny bubbles floated with the current, and streaks of green and white light twisted and curled up along the flow like eddies in a stream. Even as his heart beat, his chakra flowed through his body in pulsing waves and Naruto knew as sure as he knew his own breath what this was. This vessel, here at the center of the tree, was the source of all the chakra in the Tree. This was how the Tree had grown so tall. This chakra was so pure, so vast, that it became liquid, strong enough to be pumped upwards like water, like lifeblood. Naruto had never felt so small, but the chakra before him beckoned to him like the warmth of the stars below. He was a tiny piece of this, a drop compared to a lake, but he still belonged. The Tree was happy he was here.

"Beautiful…there isn't anywhere in either world with more chakra in one place." Naruto turned on his heel and snarled from deep in his throat.

Irrationally, as soon as Naruto remembered he was there, he wanted to kick Takashi in the face. The colors of his hair and skin stuck out against the wood, his steps echoed against the bubbling water noise of the chakra inside the vessel, even his breath felt like it disturbed the air. Naruto felt at home down to his bones, and that same instinct was screaming at him that Takashi should never have known about this place, let alone come here. This place belonged to him, not to some petty huma-

Naruto's fingernails were sharp.

"Don't worry, Naruto," Takashi whispered from behind him, "I'll keep you safe".

Naruto felt something unyielding smack into the back of his head, and his world went dark.

* * *

Naruto woke up and the sun was shining in his eyes. It was super annoying, and he tried to pull his arm up to shield his eyes, except his wrist was stuck on something. Both of his wrists were stuck on something. Naruto blinked open his eyes and looked upwards into the flow of chakra inside of a tree within a tree, and remembered instantly where he was. Naruto's breath started coming in short little gasps and he lifted his head as best he could. He was bound, with rope around each wrist and ankle, to a rectangular stone, and Takashi was standing at the edge of the table. He was holding a kunai. Naruto's throat and stomach burned with acid, and his shoulders shook when he looked down the length of his body and saw that the seal, the nine-tailed demon seal, was not only visible, but had been sliced into his body over the ink.

"I'm glad you woke up, Naruto-kun. Now we can start what we really came here for, right?" Naruto's gaze shot upwards to Takashi's own. He was still wearing his hitai-ate, still smiling, he looked the same as ever. His hands were smeared with blood.

"What the hell did you do, Takashi? Let me go!" Naruto howled. Takashi just kept smiling and shook his head slowly back and forth.

"You need this, Naruto. I've had to seal your chakra into your body, but you'll get it back once the Kyuubi is gone. See, I can't open the Aeorta without it, but if the Kyuubi has a way out, then it'll just kill me before I can even start the procedure." Naruto made an inarticulate, garbled noise from deep in his throat. Takashi apparently took it as confusion. "That's what this is, you know. The Aeorta. Without this, our world wouldn't have any chakra. Oh, you look surprised. Right, well, I don't blame you. Even if Konoha teachers weren't complete hacks, almost no one knows the origins of Chakra. See, this world, the Summoning Realm, it's entirely made of chakra, right? Well, that chakra bleeds into our world through nine golden trees like this one. This one, though, is the biggest. This is the tree of the Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox. Without the Kyuubi, this place cannot be touched."

"So, so," Naruto's breath hitched, "you used me?" Takashi's smile vanished, and he frantically shook his head no, walking around to sit on the stone by Naruto's side. Some of Naruto's blood soaked his pants.

"No! No, of course not. I'm doing this for you, Naruto. I love you. An Uzumaki like you should never have been tainted by a thing like the Kyuubi, by the hatred and cruelty and bloodshed of Konoha. You should be leading the whole of Shinobi. You're the last Uzumaki, the last pure and beautiful thing in the world." Takashi raked one shaking hand up through Naruto's bangs and Naruto whimpered, horrified to feel that his hitai-ate was gone and that those bloody fingers could touch his skin. "I'm going to give you the world, Naruto, so that you can make it bright once more. Bright, and right."

"H-h-how about, you could untie me? And then we can go back to Konoha and do that. We don't need this, this, this tree or whatever, dattebayo." Takashi smiled down at him and leaned in close.

"It's such a filthy verbal tick you have. A filthy, un-right verbal tick, filthy whisker marks, filthy chakra. It's all Konoha's fault, you know. You're going to be the Hokage of the new Konoha, the new Uzushio. I'll untie you, just once I've removed the Kyuubi, and used this Tree to wipe the current Konoha from the map. After all, it's the Chunin exams. All active Shinobi, and most inactive, and almost every civilian, they're all in town to watch the matches or to guard the village while there's guests. I'll never have a better chance than this. You will be the Hokage of a new world. And I will be right there by your side." And then, Takashi leaned down right into Naruto's face and shoved his tongue into Naruto's mouth.

Naruto screeched, deep in his throat, and thrashed his entire body, but Takashi wouldn't move. He just kept wiping his lips against Naruto's own, and his tongue was big and wet against his own. Naruto snarled and bit down as hard as he could. Takashi jerked backwards with a scream, and shoved a hand over his mouth before slapping Naruto hard over the face.

"Little vixen," he spat at Naruto as he stood. He glared down at him, sucking on his own bottom lip, as he walked around Naruto and stood between the stone table and the Aeorta.

"Serves ya right, right?" Naruto said, before spitting a glob of blood at Takashi. It splattered across his face and the Shinobi bared his teeth and silently wiped it off on his sleeve.

"See? The Kyuubi, the village, it's polluted you. I'll protect you from that darkness, Naruto. I'll pull it right out of you. Fuuin!" Takashi shouted and Naruto's skin lit on fire. He wasn't screaming, not this time, but he writhed against the ropes, yanking and twisting his limbs as every muscle jerked against the magnetic pull his entire chakra system was feeling towards the Aeorta. Takashi was above him, sweating with both palms hovering above Naruto. And then, then, he wasn't.

A flash of white to Naruto's left knocked Takashi clear across the room, and Naruto gaped incredulously at the pure white fox standing above him, as tall as Kakashi-sensei, and foaming at the mouth with foxfire, holding a sealing brush in each of her six tails.

"You dare?" growled the feminine voice of the fox. Her fuzzy lips did not move, but her bewhiskered jowls pulled back from her teeth, which cranked open around a ball of rapidly growing foxfire. "The Kyuubi-sama is not your human tool, and neither are you welcome in this sacred place. I am going to kill you for this transgression, if not today, then tomorrow, and if not then, then in my next life I will find you and rend the flesh from your bones."

On the other side of the room, Takashi was slowly rising to his feet, rolling his shoulders and spitting out a few teeth onto the floor. "Yeah? Well, I think a monster like you will make a lovely fur coat for my Hokage, bitch." And then Takashi had shunshined around and was waving a seal into existence over the fox.

The white fox twisted on her hind legs, flipping three tails ups towards the seal, the brushes twisted intricately against each other and wrote into the air a new seal just beneath Takashi's. The seals collided and fizzled out into a tiny patch of foxfire that quickly went out as the fox leapt through the flames and buried her teeth in Takashi's arm.

Takashi screamed and pulled backwards, stabbing a kunai towards the fox who reared backwards to dodge before twirling on her hind legs and smashing four of her six tails into Takashi's side, sending Takashi hurtling into the Aeorta. Except, instead of hitting the Aeorta, Takashi bunched his legs against it and launched himself back towards the fox. The fox stepped back to the spot she had first appeared, at Naruto's left, and a moment before Takashi made impact he saw all of the fox's tails frantically scribbling something into the floorboards.

Takashi was already too close, moving too fast by the time he saw the seal burst into life beneath the fox, and Naruto grinned imagining what it would do to him. The fox twirled backwards away from her creation, barking with laughter as she flipped head over tails.

Takashi skidded into the seal and it was like gravity went opposite in a column. Takashi inhaled sharply as his feet were pulled upwards, and his kunai pouch fell up into the boughs of the Aeorta, leaving him with only the few kunai in his hand.

"You…you…" Takashi was clinging onto the edge of the table Naruto was strapped to, dangling from his fingertips as if it was the edge of a cliff.

"The term you're looking for is Trickster," said the white fox through gravelly laughter. Takashi's teeth clashed together and he snarled through his nose. Then, Takashi looked down at his dangling hand, still holding three kunai in the slots between his fingers. The shinobi grinned and looked Naruto in the eye. Naruto heard the fox yelp just as Takashi threw the three kunai, slicing three of his restraints, and then let go and fell up into the tree as the Aeorta yanked Naruto's body inwards.

Naruto's left ankle was the only one still attached, and it twisted dangerously as his head was yanked all the way towards the Aeorta. Naruto shouted in fear and pain and thrust out his left arm to shield his face, only to freeze as his arm went straight through the glass and was covered in the light of the flowing chakra. His forehead was an inch away from going in too, before the strap on his ankle yanked harshly and his body jolted to a halt.

"Oh no," Naruto whispered, "oh no oh no oh no." He yanked frantically, screaming behind his lips as the flex of his leg muscles made his ankle burn and scrape against the rope. Whatever he did, though, his arm did not move. The magnetic pull from the Aeorta slowly faded away, but wrapped around his arm almost completely over his shoulder was a perfect seal of glass.

"It's too late," said the fox. She'd moved to sit upright across the room from him. The light inside the room was fading away to black, the chakra in the Aeorta going dim and red. "Your arm is already inside. The Aeorta will consume your chakra, and use it to destroy your home." Naruto shook his head frantically and pulled harder than he'd ever imagined he could. He screeched towards the ceiling. The blood on his stomach from the sliced-in seal flowed heavy over his heaving sides.

"No, it can't! There has to be something! Please, anything!" Naruto watched the fox and tried to beg with his eyes. The fox looked expressionless, frozen like snow, but her tails were drooping and curling around her paws. The fox looked away from him first.

"What would you give up to save your home?" she asked. "Would you give up, say, your left arm?" Naruto nodded and stopped his frantic tugs. His shoulder felt about ready to pop out of its socket. He couldn't let Konoha be destroyed. He could never let all of those people die. It didn't matter what it would take. This was all his fault.

"Yes! Yes! Anything!" He was staring at the fox, who looked back up and met his eyes. He hadn't known a fox could cry, before.

The white fox grinned at him, all white teeth and tear-filled red eyes glinting in the fox fire light. It was the last thing Naruto saw before the fox lunged towards him, mouth gaping impossibly wide, and latched down on his left shoulder.

Naruto screamed his lungs out, wrenching every muscle in his body away from the teeth and the light and the -oh Kami- fangs slicing into his skin- And then Naruto heard a crunching noise, barely louder than his screams, and Naruto's whole left side felt wet and loose as his right cheek slapped against the slick floor beneath him. As soon as he hit the ground, the fox was hovering over him, and she was more red than white now, blood smeared all down her muzzle and chest. Naruto bit his lower lip and whined as his eyes started going blurry. The fox was saying something, meeting his eyes with concern, and Naruto felt fur pressing against the gaping hole on his left side. Fur where he should have an arm. The last thing Naruto saw before he passed out was seven matted-red tails curved protectively around his left shoulder.


	6. Present 3: Ino and Naruto

Present

* * *

Ino was disturbed. Nothing was happening the way it was supposed to, all of the rules of the world seemed to have been broken at once, and Ino would be the first to admit that she didn't know everything, that she had a lot left to understand about the world, but it was the reactions of everyone else that got to her. See, Yamanakas have to read people, yes, and not just with jutsus. Ino was learning, even as just a genin, how to look at somebody and see if they're dangerous, or lying, or scared. Ino had never seen expressions like she'd seen today, and she'd extra never seen them from the grown-ups. She'd extra-super never seen them from Shikamaru.

Shikamaru almost never reacted to anything. But when Naruto fell – not even jumped, fell! – into the arena, Shikamaru had looked…Ino couldn't begin to say. It was like he was seeing a monster. Except, Naruto wasn't the monster, the monster was something just behind Naruto that Ino couldn't see but Shikamaru, smarty-pants Shikamaru, could. It was like he looked at Naruto and saw what had happened to him. And that scared Ino more than anything. Because Shikamaru, she'd never seen him look at anyone like that before.

Naruto was supposed to be the cheerful idiot. He wore orange, and was dumb and got beaten by Sasuke-kun, and then he'd get up and laugh and do something silly and stupid. Only now, now he didn't have his left arm. At all. That just didn't happen! Sure, some super old retired shinobi might be missing a limb, but genin who were in the village didn't just lose a limb without anybody noticing! And Ino was certain of that, that no one had noticed. The jounin senseis weren't as subtle as they'd like to be. She couldn't even blame them. Naruto looked horrible.

And then he'd demolished Hyuuga Neji.

When Naruto crawled up the side of the stadium to them Ino went from 'disturbed' to 'horrified'. Naruto looked so beat up. His skin was pale and greasy and bloodstained, which made his weird whisker-marks jut out of his face. She'd thought they were ink, like Kiba's fangs, but now she could see they were more…solid? Like scars, but not. They made him look feral. The way Naruto was hunched over, protecting the gaping chasm where his arm was supposed to be, that didn't help. Also he wasn't wearing any orange. That was almost the weirdest bit.

Naruto's sensei, the tall skinny one that forehead-girl was always complaining about, went to him. He was treating Naruto like a stray dog, almost.

"Kakashi-sensei, water? Please?" said Naruto. His voice was so scratchy it hurt. When was even the last time he had a drink?

Ino didn't hear much of what happened next, because Sakura finally got her wits back and stood up. Sasuke-kun stood up with her, and Ino knew she'd normally be jealous or whatever but this was so much more important that she'd kick Sasuke-kun's ass right then and there to know what was going on. After all, a genin, one of her classmates, a fellow Konoha-nin, a blonde just like her, was missing an arm and no one seemed to know why. That was, by definition, a super bad sign.

"We should go find out what's going on, right Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked her teammate. Sasuke-kun just grunted, but he also followed Sakura when she pranced off. Ino followed them as well and pulled Chouji along with her. If something bad was going on, then she wasn't going to let Chouji out of her sight!

"Stay close, Chouji, please?" she whispered. Chouji looked confused for a moment, before his expression cleared and he nodded. His hand tightened around hers and Ino relaxed a little. Then, she looked around for Shikamaru. She needed her team safe and close right now, dammit!

Shikamaru was already standing on the other side of Naruto. He was leaning against the banister and he looked more like his dad than Ino had ever seen before. It was like his shadow had gotten darker. His hands weren't in his thinking pose, either, just clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles had gone bloodless and pale.

Sakura reached Naruto's side and immediately screeched in his ear. "Naruto!" she yelled, "What was that? How did you learn to do all of that stuff? When did you get good at fighting? And why are you so gross? Oh, and yeah, where is your arm!?" Ino growled under her breath and she felt Chouji lean closer to her shoulder in support. When Sakura started yelling, Naruto jumped so bad that Ino was surprised he was still in the stadium. And the way he'd held his hand out towards forehead-girl, that was prep for a jutsu, and not a friendly one. According to her clan teachings this indicated that Naruto, for whatever reason, was unable to discern ally from threat at this point in time, which was a symptom of battle trauma. Ino looked over Sakura's shoulder and eyed his shoulder. Trauma was putting the scarring lightly. It looked like somebody had cut it off with a kunai held backwards.

Forehead-girl, of course, didn't even notice how close she came to triggering a defensive response from her own teammate. She was so annoying, she had the shinobi instincts of a slug even after months of being a genin. Ridiculous.

Naruto didn't get to answer her before his sensei sent them off, reminding them all that Sasuke-kun's match was starting soon. Ino had been so excited, but now… Hinata-chan was still sobbing, back at her seat, and Shino was sitting with her. Kiba had walked up with them and Sakura to see Naruto but as soon as team seven's sensei had warned them off he'd scampered back to Hinata-chan like a puppy with its tail between its legs. And Shikamaru was still pulled taught like a bowstring.

Ino pulled on Chouji so they went and sat back down, but this time Ino shoved Chouji down into the seat right next to her. He could stop her easily, so Ino never hesitated to push him around in an emergency.

"Ino," he said, "what have you figured out so far?" Ino bit her lip and leaned in to Chouji's ear. His faith in her was kind, but also painful considering how little she had to tell him.

"No one knows what's going on but Naruto, who isn't talking. Whatever it was, it was very bad, and scared him a lot, and it definitely can't have happened in Konoha. Someone would have noticed. And whatever it was, I don't think it was fast. He looks like his whole month has been crappy. That means, whatever happened, somebody's in very big trouble over what happened to Naruto. And," Ino hesitated, "I don't think that what happened was an accident. I think someone did that to Naruto. Someone probably not in Konoha." Hopefully not in Konoha.

"Well reasoned." Ino and Chouji both jumped as Shikamaru materialized next to them. The lazy jerk usually made some noise to announce himself but today of all days he decided to act like…oh. Actually, Ino kind of understood. Shikamaru wasn't acting just as their childhood friend right now. He was acting like a shinobi. Like their team leader.

"Shikamaru," she replied, "plan?" Shikamaru glanced at her and Ino tensed at the worried look in his eyes. He shook his head in the negative, then shrugged, and Ino and Chouji both relaxed. Ino nodded once and then stood up to sit on Chouji's other side. That left Shikamaru to her seat, with Chouji surrounded by the both of them. They'd be able to see any threats coming to him, and he'd be nearby to aid either of them if needed. This was their usual formation for observational information gathering. And that was what Shikamaru wanted right now. Basically, it was time to, as Asuma-sensei put it, "hurry up and wait".

Ino settled against Chouji and accepted the chip he handed her. Today of all days, she friggin' deserved to cheat a little. Kunoichi needed calories anyways. Also, it was something remotely pleasant. Even seeing Sasuke-kun down in the arena wasn't making her feel any better.

After all, Sasuke-kun was about to get his ass kicked. Or maybe even die. She didn't have any illusions about that.

"Sasuke-kun" Sakura whispered from down the row. Her hands were laced together like she was praying. Past her, Naruto was sitting alone and watching Sasuke-kun as well. Except, he didn't look worried, or encouraging, or even angry like back at the academy. He looked lost. And maybe a bit queasy. And, and worst of all, he looked like seeing Sasuke-kun was painful. Like Sasuke was some great, terrible thing Naruto wanted to either reach out and touch or never see again. Or maybe both. He looked almost betrayed.

Ino snapped her gaze away back down to the arena. It was a horrible thought. She couldn't believe she'd even considered it. Sasuke would never do that to a comrade, right? Except, Ino realized she wasn't sure. The boy down in the arena, her handsome Sasuke-kun, he was glaring at the freaky Suna-nin with red Sharingan eyes and gritted teeth. Only the eye color was different from how he usually looked at Naruto. At least, when he wasn't beating Naruto's ass into the dirt. When that happened, he always smirked. Ino had found it handsome on his pretty face.

Now, she felt kind of sick. What had Sasuke looked like when Naruto had first walked in? She'd only gotten a glimpse, but when he first saw Naruto he hadn't looked worried, or scared, or even confused. He'd looked murderous.

Ino didn't like that she wasn't sure that Sasuke didn't have something to do with all of this.

"Match, begin!"

Ino snapped her attention back to the arena as Sasuke and Gaara began their fight. Except, as frosting on the weird-day cake, Gaara wasn't doing anything. Unless looking like you had a headache was a cool new battle-tactic. She almost figured it for a trick, to lure Sasuke in close, except then Sasuke punched Gaara's lights out and, just like that, it was over. The monster, the unbeatable sand-defense Gaara of Suna, was one-hit KO'd.

"What the hell," Ino breathed. Next to her, she felt Chouji nod and open another bag of chips. He must be really anxious to be doing that. And Asuma-sensei must be really busy to not come over and try to stop him. Ino actually leaned up to look over the back of her seat at the jounin-senseis and what she saw was nearly enough to make her leave and go home altogether out of sheer confusion. The jounin weren't looking at Naruto anymore, oh no, they were looking down at Gaara and looking even more terrified than they had earlier when Naruto had shown up! It was like this unconscious Suna-nin was a bomb about to go off or something. Ino was half convinced by now this was some horrific genjutsu, and she pinched herself viciously on the thigh and looked over to Shikamaru. Shikamaru wasn't looking at the arena or the jounin, no, he was looking at Naruto. He was looking at Naruto like he was seeing Naruto for the first time and it was breaking his heart. Ino's own heart stuttered as she realized Shikamaru's face wasn't scrunched like that out of just worry or deep thoughts or nervousness. No, he was sad. He was terrified. Ino shot her eyes over to Naruto and checked him over visually for any (more) gaping wounds. Nothing stood out, but Shikamaru had obviously seen something.

"Humph!" came a voice from in front of her. Ino fell back to earth to the sight of forehead-girl standing nearby to her, smirking. "I knew Sasuke-kun would win. Since we're on a team together, I've seen first hand just how amazing he is. I bet he'll be super offended when I tell him you doubted him, Ino. After all, I've always had faith in Sasuke-kun!"

Ino gaped at her ex-friend. She could feel her clenched fists shaking. So, she launched herself upright and walked up to stand toe-to-toe with the shallow, cruel little girl playing kunoichi.

"That's what you're thinking about right now? After everything that's happened in the last hour, that's what you focus on? What the hell, forehead-girl? Take Sasuke, do whatever you want, but don't you ever think I'll respect you as a kunoichi after this. I hope I never have to trust you to have my back on the field." Yamanakas learn from a young age about the legacy of the Akimichi and Nara clans. How their three families worked together and trusted each other for so many years, were friends out of mutual respect and admiration. A shinobi is always stronger as a team, and that's why Ino's legacy to fulfill was the Ino-Shika-Cho formation. If she'd shown up looking like Naruto, Shikamaru and Chouji would've shown up in exactly the same condition, because they'd never have let her be taken alone in the first place. They'd have noticed she was gone and done anything to help her. That, she realized now, was what scared her so much about Naruto. For a whole month, if she was right, he'd been in pain, in need of his comrades. And no one noticed. And even now, here, he was sitting alone.

Ino looked desperately past forehead-girl to Naruto. In the time since Sakura had shown up, Shikamaru had gone over to him and sat down. Ino was glad. Shikamaru was one of the two best friends anyone could ever hope for.

"You're giving up on Sasuke-kun? And, and what do you mean about not trusting me? I'm going to be a great Kunoichi! You're just a jealous little fangirl, Ino-pig."

Sakura's face was red and angry. She'd shifted into an aggressive stance, sure, but it was no fighting stance. Ino could topple her easily. Sakura never got into a fighting stance unless she was told to. It wasn't instinctual for her. Ino looked into Sakura's green eyes. Sakura looked like a jealous little fangirl.

"Whatever, Haruno." With that, Ino took one step back towards Chouji and spat on the ground in front of Sakura's perfectly pedicured feet.

* * *

Naruto kept himself tucked in his corner as Sasuke stumbled back to his seat. The Jounin were all hovering in their clump, only now instead of talking they were staring in various states of distress towards Gaara, ranging from confused to horrified. Bushy-brow's sensei was flat out growling, with barred teeth and everything, while tears streamed down his face from suddenly very scary-looking eyes pinned to the unmoving body of the Ichibi Jinchuuriki.

Only Kakashi-sensei was looking at Naruto. And boy, was he looking. Kakashi-sensei was looking at him like Naruto was bleeding from a gut wound, or growing a second head or something. Naruto huffed at Kaka-sensei and scratched his whisker marks, only so that he could break eye contact. Getting stared at was pretty much never a good thing, so far as he could tell.

On the ground next to Naruto someone flopped down and sat on his stump-side with a beleaguered sigh. Naruto twitched away, inexplicably anxious, and looked over to see Shikamaru sprawled out by him, looking out through the railings like Naruto with a grimace.

"Haaa, nothing is going as expected, and I think it's all you-" Naruto's stomach sank, but Shikamaru abruptly cut himself off and rubbed the back of his head, looking down at his feet. "Troublesome…" he muttered. "You seem to know what's going on better than most, Naruto. Who do you think will win the next match?" Shikamaru said this louder, and even looked Naruto in the eyes when he said it. Shikamaru actually looked kind of like he was trying to smile, but he was so obviously nervous that it reminded Naruto of some of the shopkeepers who were more scared of him than angry. Naruto pouted and crossed his arm across his chest to clutch at his side. He shrugged with both shoulders, trying and failing to ignore the association. Shikamaru's eyes immediately went to his stump, and then he turned a kind of greenish color. That was a bit better, maybe.

"How should I know?" Naruto mumbled. Shikamaru wrenched his eyes from Naruto's stump and looked him in the eyes. Now, now his eyes were all big and round. Shikamaru's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. Naruto was pretty sure that this was more energy than Shikamaru was used to putting into anything, and he was kind of worried, now, for real, that Shikamaru would wear himself out before his match was even called.

"Naruto…" said Shikamaru, "why wasn't your…amputation…treated by a medic-nin?" He kept glancing at Naruto's stump with a growing frown. Naruto shrugged again to see if Shikamaru would turn green again. He didn't, but his frown did get deeper, and the weirdo actually leaned in closer to watch his stump move. What, wondered Naruto, did he even expect to see? Naruto scrunched up one of his eyes and scoffed at Shikamaru.

"Cuz I couldn't, duh."

"That is not a reason as obvious to me as it is to you." Shikamaru propped his chin up on his palm with his elbow planted on his own thigh. He was so pointy, it was a wonder he could do that without popping like a balloon.

"Well, yanno," said Naruto, waving his hand out to the side, "even if there was somebody around, it's not like they'd help me. Like, like, you don't treat an animal at the Hospital-ttebayo, yeah, so, um, I just toughed it out. I'm a great healer! When it's me, I mean." Naruto grinned at Shikamaru in pride. Shikamaru's chin slipped off his hand and the lazy guy let his forehead plop into his palm instead. Now that his face was buried in his own hand, he groaned for, like, a solid ten seconds. Naruto raised his eyebrows. After all, that was just impressive!

Eventually Shikamaru raised his face to Naruto. His eyes were weirdly red around the edges, and his lower lip was shaky. Shikamaru stared Naruto dead in the eye with a blank expression.

"I want to fight you today. The only way for that to occur is for both of us to win every match and face each other in the final round. So, don't lose to Uchiha-san, or else it'll be very troublesome."

Naruto froze. He could feel his eyes going all round and startled. "You…wanna fight me? Me, not somebody else? You don't think I'm gonna lose to Sasuke?"

Shikamaru hummed and reached a hand out towards Naruto, and Naruto shuffled so that his hand was free before he even noticed what was happening. Shikamaru's hand drifted to rest on the floor, palm up. It was very calloused, even more than Sasuke's. Their hands barely brushed at the edge, his index finger to Shikamaru's own. When he remade eye contact with Shikamaru, the taller boy was smiling but his eyes made him look like he was in pain.

"Call it a feeling I have, I guess." Shikamaru smirked and looked back to the arena. Naruto followed his line of sight. Shino had just jumped down, and Kankuro was in the process of joining him from the other side of the arena stands. "Sasuke, he'll use some taijutsu and then try to hit you with a fire or lightning jutsu. He's predictable. No one knows what you're going to do, Naruto. If you want to win, then you will."

Down in the arena, Shino and Kankuro were called to begin their match. Shino brought out his bugs, and Kankuro brought out his puppets. Shikamaru and Naruto silently watched as, in less than two minutes, wave after wave of puppet and insect collided into each other until Shino, overwhelmed, was knocked out by the Suna puppeteer.

"Yeah," Shikamaru whispered, "It's troublesome, but I think it might be time for us to become chunin. Change is supposed to be a good thing, right? Haa," he sighed heavily before turning to Naruto and grinning, wider than Naruto had ever seen him smile. "It's just too interesting to resist, even if it is troublesome."

"Shikamaru," called Asuma-sensei. Shikamaru stood up and slouched over, hands in pockets and bored expression. Naruto missed the tickle at the end of his finger where it had met Shikamaru's. "It's your match! Now please, please, take this seriously, and tomorrow I'll let you nap all you want." Asuma-sensei was puffing desperately on his stub of a cigarette and alternating between dubiously eyeing Shikamaru and glancing over at Naruto.

"Yeah, yeah," Shikamaru grumbled with a little pout. Yet, that pout vanished as soon as he turned back towards Naruto, replaced with a smirk, and there was no hesitation when Shikamaru grabbed the railing and jumped over into the arena. He left only the flicker of a shadow in his wake.


	7. Past 4

Past - 1 Month

* * *

"-up…you must wake…please…little fox, you must wake up!"

Naruto's eyes snapped open and he screamed helplessly at the pain. His entire left arm was burning, his shoulder felt like it had been chewed up and spat back out it was so bad. And to make it worse he was being jostled all over the place, up and down with wind whistling past his ears. Naruto's right hand clenched down hard and he realized he was holding fur.

"Kit, the human is gaining on us. I can run faster, but only if you hold on." Naruto yelped and looked down. He was sprawled out over a field of white fur and he realized that the things around his waist, holding him to the back of the massive white fox, were tails. Tails matted with reddish brown gunk.

"Oh, kami," Naruto moaned. That was his blood. His arm was… He couldn't think about that now. "Who's after us? What's going on?" he yelled down at the fox, barely able to be heard even by himself with how crackly his voice was and how loud the wind was. They were running across that great field Takashi and he had taken a month to pass, only they were headed for a forest out in the distance. One of the many forests Takashi had warned him not to go near.

"The human, the human from Kyuubi-sama's tree, he's regained consciousness and he's after us. If I can get us to the forest, we'll have a day or two before he can come in after us. It's our only shot. I know it hurts, and I'm so sorry, but you must grab onto me and try to stay still!" Naruto, still swimming with confusion and pain, grit his teeth hard against the puke coming up into his mouth. Takashi…he was behind them. Everything hurt so bad. Everything was hot, and the sun was so bright on his red-hot skin, and everything smelled like blood. Naruto groaned and clenched his legs around the fox lady's back and grabbed onto her shoulder with his right…his only arm. As soon as he did so, the world blurred around them.

The sky was a golden sheet above them, the only unmoving thing in the world, where beneath them the grasses did not so much as sway beneath the fox lady's paws. Rather, they burned. Because there, tipping each snow white limb, was a flickering mantle of green flame.

Fox fire.

As the fox fire scorched the ground beneath them both, the two tails on Naruto's waist released him. He immediately had to huddle down against his ride. The wind felt more like a sheet of fabric being pushed against him, now, like at any moment he would be ripped off her back and whisked away into the dusk air, like a wisp of smoke from one of his popped kage bunshin.

And then they were flying.

The ground dropped out from beneath them, and fox lady wasn't running anymore, no, she was leaping. Like a stone skidding across the surface of a lake, each time she dipped downwards her paws seemed to hit some invisible barrier and Naruto had to gasp against his painful panting at the beauty of the giant rings of fox fire that flared from her footprints each time she pushed off from thin air. The green flames rippled outwards from them like the sky was now an ocean, and they were running across its surface.

The world was finally silent.

All he could hear was his own breath. His chest hurt, and every time he breathed in or out his left side just, just, cracked open. He hadn't known pain could feel like this. It was like his arm was still being ripped off, like the hole was letting scraps of him leak out at the edges.

"Thank you, kit."

Naruto jerked slightly and hissed. Moving was the worst. Feeling anything was the absolute worst. His eyes watered and he, stupidly, noticed that as well as being tired and gouged out with painful throbs from his left side, he was also ridiculously thirsty. And now he was riding on top of the giant fox that had bit off his arm in the first place.

"Hwwwweeer" he tried to ask. He was so confused! But his voice cracked and all he managed was that weird, reedy whine.

"Oh, kit. Don't worry for now, okay? We can touch down soon and I'll get us to somewhere we can den for the night. You'll feel better soon, I promise. Just let me handle everything, little fox. You've done so well."

Naruto was tired. The sky was turning dark around them, and the green flames flickered out into the indigo at the edges of the world. He could almost hear the sheets of light chiming as they swayed in the air in front of the first few stars. There were so many questions he needed to ask, so much he needed to figure out, he didn't even know if he could trust the fox…

His eyes drifted shut as several tails wound back around his waist.

* * *

Everything was all floaty and tingly.

Naruto groaned and tried to roll over. Something stopped him, though, and he just ended up shoving his face into something that smelled amazing. Like fresh dirt and moss. He squinted open one eye.

It was moss.

Turning his head felt like twisting open a rusty faucet. He could see more now, though, like the ceiling above him. The roof was woven together with massive tree roots, not crazy big, but like Konoha-big. A little bit of sunlight was filtering through from a gap in the roots on the other side of the mossy hollow from Naruto. The hole made a beam into the middle of the hollow that lit up the entire space like a lantern. Naruto was the only thing here that wasn't moss or dirt or tree.

"Little fox!"

Naruto blinked and dazedly looked back to the entrance, where the light was being partially blocked by the massive, pointed white head of the lady fox. This was Naruto's first time really seeing her up close. And jeez, she was really big. Naruto twitched and tried to squirm upright when the fox lady squirmed into the hollow - she took up, like, half of it - only for her to stick her head in his abdomen and start sniffing him frantically. All the movement made his left shoulder spasm like he had the worst cramp ever, and he felt like the floaty-tingly feeling was draining away a little. In its place, everything hurt.

"H-hey! Whatcha think you're doing?" he blurted. The fox lady just snorted and sat up slightly.

"I'm just checking that you're healing alright, kit. I was worried, at first, but the gifts of our Kyuubi-sama are strong in you." The lady fox was looking down at him softly, and her voice was gentle and pleased, but Naruto couldn't wrap his head around how a giant fox was talking to him without moving her mouth or anything. Also, hadn't she been pure white before?

"What're the red marks?"

White fox lady sighed and tilted her head. The beam of light hit her red marks even better that way, and Naruto noticed even more of them. All down her throat her fur was spattered with tiny red nicks like a snowy owl's stomach, not a lot but enough to make her neck and chest stick out a bit. Also, each of her tails had a crimson red tip. He was totally certain she hadn't had that before.

"Some stains never go away, kit." Fox lady laid down so her chin rested on her front paws. It put her head scarily close to Naruto's face, and so also his neck. Her red eyes never flickered or twitched, just looked at him like he was the only thing in the world. It was beyond freaky, no one looked at Naruto that way ever. "Your blood will never leave me, just as my actions will never fade. My fur will always grow in patterned red, now, unless some even greater calamity befalls me which eclipses even these scars." Naruto gulped and glanced down at his left shoulder. There was no blood, not anywhere. And where his arm should be was packed with the same spongy moss as beneath his head.

"S-sorry dattebayo. But, anno, I don't remember your name? Um, or where we are? What's going on?" Naruto whined out the last of his questions and he could feel his neck heating up when it made the fox-lady snicker. Her teeth were really big.

"I'm Yuki, and you're Naruto. We're in a den I keep near the edge of this forest in case of emergency. We can't stay long, but I wanted to get some water and food into you before we try to put some distance between us and the Aorta. Well, between you and the human."

"And-and hey! Why do you keep calling Takashi 'the human'. I'm human too, you know." Naruto scowled as furiously as he could up at Yuki. Lots of the villagers back home called him stuff that definitely wasn't 'human'. He never liked it. If he wasn't so tired, he'd shake his fist at her!

"Hmm?" said Yuki. She was already turning around and plucking something from her leftmost tail into her forepaws. She laid the object at Naruto's side. "Well, I suppose you're human, but obviously you're a fox, too. I didn't want you to feel left out of our clan by bringing up your parentage. It's not like you're only half of a fox, you're a whole fox, you're just a whole human as well. And before any of that, you're a kit under my protection. That makes you my little fox kit, now." The thing she'd given Naruto was a sack, and she used her teeth to rip it open a little too easily. Naruto shivered as he remembered the last thing he'd seen those teeth tear apart like paper. Desperately looking for a distraction, he eyes the inside the sack. There was mostly just a bunch of berries and strips of meat, but there was also a weird squash-thing with a cork in the top. Yuki took the gourd and popped the cork out with her teeth. It looked more like a seed in her gaping maw until she spat it onto the ground. She brandished the gourd at Naruto. "Drink!"

Naruto frowned and shuffled lightly. His left shoulder hurt, badly, but not so much that he couldn't move. He slowly lifted his right arm and actually sighed in relief. He'd been sort of scared that it'd be gone, too. As soon as he grabbed the water Yuki shoved her paws under his back and pushed him carefully upright, keeping the moss packed over his empty shoulder.

"Hey!" he yelped. A bit of the water spilled out. "I can do it!"

"Ha!" Yuki barked. "And next I suppose you'll carry me from here to Konoha on your back? Don't be silly, kit. I've got you, so don't worry for now, I've got you." Yuki smelled like fur and living thing and ink. Naruto couldn't believe he was doing this, after Takashi, after all of that, but he found himself kind of trusting Yuki. It was like, like she felt safe. She smelled like him, except not. And when she laughed, Naruto got what she was laughing at. With Takashi, he'd never really understood what the man was thinking. He understood even less, now. So, Naruto hefted the gourd-bottle and drank.

He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until the water hit his tongue.

When he finished, Yuki laid him back down and turned away to do something with the sack of food that Naruto ignored. Instead, he just stared up at the roots holding up the packed dirt and moss from falling onto him.

Naruto slipped his right hand slowly down his torso. His chest was half skin, half moss, but mostly normal. His stomach was what felt strange. Before now, his stomach had always felt sort of numb when he wasn't using any jutsus. Now, he felt like he had skin there for the first time. Except that skin felt, even without touching, like it was stitched together in a series of swirls that he hoped, hoped with all his might, were just his imagination tricking him. Only then his palm ran over grooved, rough skin.

The scars were too deliberate and thick to be anything other than the Kyuubi seal, and Naruto clenched his eyes shut. In that moment, he wanted to be anywhere other than in this body, trapped with this thing that made people hate him and hurt him. The only good thing it had done for him before was keep him whole and healthy. Now it hadn't even managed that! He'd never had a scar before. Of course his first set would be the mark of the monster in his belly.

Naruto sighed. The Kyuubi wasn't what caused the scars, not really. Just like Yuki wasn't really who took away his arm.

"It won't heal."

Naruto turned to look at Yuki. She had her back to him, and her seven white tails were lazily curling through the air like the branches of a snow-laden tree in a storm.

"What? My arm? I mean, I kinda guessed that."

"Heh," she snorted. "The seal. I don't often praise human work, but that blight is well designed for its prey. The only way to remove it, now, would be to remove Kyuubi-sama altogether. Even then, the chakra it would take, well, someone like you might manage it if it wasn't on you in the first place, but certainly not him or I." Naruto frowned and watched Yuki's shoulders hunch up by her ears. He could only see it because her tails were drooping.

"Hey, Yuki? Why's Takashi chasing us? Why'd he…I mean, why, what did he want with me? He wasn't, yanno, wasn't like that before-ttebayo!" After Naruto spoke, Yuki sighed and turned around. In her jaw was a dangling bowl-thing of mashed berries and a few strips of the meat. She carried it over to him, placed it delicately on the ground, and pushed it towards his right hand with her snout.

"As a summons, I am not well versed in the evils of humans," she said, then hesitated and curled up her tails around her front paws. "As a seven-tails, I'm cunning enough to understand what cannot be ignored. The human needs you to access the Aorta. He may want to destroy your entire world or he may want to save it. I do not care. No one should have that kind of power. The Kyuubi-sama, great and calamitous, exists because of what happens when a creature chooses godhood over life." Yuki sighed, deep in her chest and laid down with her tails curling over Naruto's bare belly. Her fur was unbelievably soft, and her warmth soothed the throbbing that was growing in his left side. "We can only stay for a few hours yet, kit. Then, we must break for the Fox Den. I need you to listen to me. The next few months will likely be hard, harder than anything a kit your age should go through. If I tell you to run, you must run. Look to the horizon and find the peak that is tinged green when the sunlight fades. Follow it until you reach the fungal grove, the mushrooms will show you which way gives life and which gives death. Follow those lights until you see the great stone where Kyuubi-sama rested his venerable nine tails. I will find you there, or I will die trying. And if the human finds you, you must not fight him. You must run." Yuki breathed soft against Naruto's hair. His hitai-ate was gone, and Naruto felt his eyes water when he realized it must have gotten left behind at the Kyuubi-tree. "You are a fox, little one, as much as you are a human. That seal, which binds Kyuubi-sama within you, it binds away your chakra as well. I cannot begin to guess how your chakra pathways will adapt, between your skin and your arm. I will buy you the time to find out."

Naruto had so many questions. Nothing she was saying really made sense, or helped, and he hated how scared he felt at even just the suspicion that she might be leaving him. But, before he could protest, Yuki blew a hot gust of air out between her teeth into his face. The breath was the green of sunlight through leaves, and smelled like wildflowers and trees. Naruto was asleep in moments.


	8. Past 5

Past - Yuki's Den

Naruto woke up when something rumbled off in the distance.

The den was dark, and Yuki's white fur glowed in the faint light of the moon. She was hovering over Naruto, head turned away from him, like a sentinel carved out of stone. Naruto took desperate comfort in how, a hairsbreadth from his stomach, Yuki's furry white chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm with Naruto's own. She radiated heat, and Naruto shivered away from the cold behind him. In his sleepy, pained state all he wanted was to curl up into Yuki's fluffy-looking fur and go back to sleep until none of this had ever happened.

"He's here."

A sharp gasp rattled through the night air, and Naruto realized it had been him. Yuki was unmoving, staring out the entry way with glowing red eyes. Somewhere out there, Takashi was hunting him down. Naruto crept his fingers forward, reaching for Yuki. She might not like it if he grabbed her, but he had never been so scared before. Not with Mizuki, not with the demon brothers, not even with Zabuza and Haku. Naruto, laying on the cold, compact dirt, could almost feel the vibrations of the footfalls carrying Takashi to him.

He knew he wasn't the smartest ninja ever, of course he knew that. And that first time out of Konoha with the demon brothers, he'd totally froze up. This was so much scarier than that he could barely think, and there wasn't even any killing intent! The thing was, he was smart enough to know that, this time, it wasn't his life at stake. It was Konoha. If Takashi got him back to the tree, then he'd destroy Konoha, and inside Konoha was everybody Naruto cared about.

Strength comes from protecting your precious people.

Naruto startled when Yuki stood in one fluid stretch of her spine and tails. The seven tails each rippled like waves against a shore, and fuuinjutsu brushes seemingly appeared out of thin air in each tail's grasp. A second rumble off in the distance made Naruto finally shove his hand into the dirt and push himself upright.

"Yuki," he whispered, "we gotta run, right? Towards the green mountain and the mushrooms you talked about." Naruto stared over at the lady fox, and a sinking feeling dripped down into his stomach. Yuki wasn't turning to face him.

"You remember my directions, then. I'm glad," she said. Her voice was flat, eerily so. Naruto clenched his fist and leaned forward. Something was wrong. Why weren't they running?

"Yuki? I don't understand, what's happening?"

Yuki sighed. When she turned around, green wisps of light were steaming from between her teeth like smoke. "My kit. My little fox," she said, rough like she had to wrench the words from her chest. "He's stronger than I expected. The way is blocked. The only chance you have is to go alone. If I fight him, I may be able to create an opening for you. It's our only option." Yuki leaned down and in until her massive forehead was pressed, solid and radiating heat, against his own. Naruto found himself instinctively wrapping his arm up around her face and clinging to her ruff. "I will not lose another kit, Naruto. You will make it, and if I do not appear at the grand stone within three days of your arrival, then you will leave and find our kin."

Naruto's breath hitched, and the throbbing in his left shoulder deepened. His tears, tears spilling out without his permission, stupid tears, soaked into Yuki's soft snowy fur. Dammit, crying was supposed to be for scaredy-cats, not shinobi like him! Although, after everything with Takashi, it was hard to feel confident about anything, especially his own ninja skills.

"Yuki," he whispered, voice rattling in his heaving chest. "This is my fault, isn't it? Cuz I'm so stupid, and I'm a monster, and now you and Konoha-"

"Naruto," Yuki interrupted. "Listen to me. You are no more monster than I am. Lessons learned the hard way are never fair, but they do run deep. Your trust is a gift. Kits deserve the chance to learn from their mistakes without this pain you now face. So, I will protect you until you can protect yourself, so that you can protect those you love. That is the lesson I learned the hard way."

Naruto dug his fingers into Yuki's fur and gasped for breath. "T-true strength comes from protecting yuh-your precious people."

"Exactly, sweetheart," Yuki crooned. "See? You're not stupid at all. You're much smarter than I was at your age, and you're way super smarter than that arrogant human!"

Naruto's little sobbing hiccups dissolved into embarrassing wet, snotty giggles that he tried to stifle against Yuki's fur, but even in the dark he could tell that her forehead was getting shiny with damp, so he leaned back and wiped his nose across his forearm until the drippy feeling went away.

"I got your fur wet," he said, half apologizing and half defending. Yuki only snorted and shook her head from side to side like the biggest dog ever. When she stilled, Yuki leaned back and raised one forepaw to hover beneath her chin and lolled her tongue out of her mouth.

"Do I look cool and punk-rock, now?" Naruto looked up at her head, where his snot had crystallized into a bunch of shiny spikes of white fur. He snorted and then had to laugh harder when a huge drip of snot came out. "I'll take that as a 'yes, Yuki, you're the coolest fox ever!' So thank you, Naruto. I always try to look my best for battle." Naruto was laughing so hard he could barely stay upright, at this point, and when Yuki sucked her tongue back into her mouth he rubbed at his eyes to try and clean himself up even just a little. He didn't want to look as silly as Yuki! "Good," Yuki whispered.

"Huh?" Naruto scratched his left cheek and tilted his head up at Yuki, confused and feeling weirdly drained. It'd been a long time since he'd cried, and then he'd also laughed super hard. And also his left shoulder was tingling and stinging.

Yuki sat up to her full height and passed Naruto a little messenger bag slung over her tail, which he silently slipped over his head and shoulder. For all of her ruffled fur and the way her ears scraped the dirt ceiling, she looked regal. She looked more like a shinobi than Naruto had ever dreamed was possible.

"A fox always goes into battle smiling. Someday, when you've got a few more tails, you'll understand why."

Naruto froze and gaped up at Yuki. "Tails!?"

Yuki only laughed and snatched him into the coils of two of her own tails before leaping out the doorway into the black forest.

Naruto didn't get why he trusted Yuki so much. Except, he also sort of did. She was a lot like him. Or more like, she was everything Naruto wanted to be. It also helped that she was a fox instead of a human person. Instead of scaring him, like it probably would scare Sakura or Ino, Yuki's fuzziness and sharp teeth made Naruto feel normal and safe for the first time in a long time. Yuki just made more sense than weirdos like Kakashi-sensei or even Jiji and Iruka-sensei. The thing he didn't get was why he felt like that. Because he wasn't a fox, no way, he was a human. A jinchuuriki, sure, but that just meant he was a person that happened to have a big fox sealed inside of him.

Worrying about trusting Yuki was pretty stupid right now, anyways. Takashi was a bit more important to worry about, what with him being on his way to kidnap him and destroy Konoha. Also, being carried around in two of Yuki's tails was pretty fun. He was, like, half convinced he was upside down right now.

"Kitsune."

Naruto tensed inside of Yuki's embrace. Takashi sounded furious, cold and hateful in a way he'd never ever spoken to Naruto. He hadn't heard someone speak like that, like their voice was killing-intent, since Orochimaru.

Takashi's next words echoed from every direction at once. Naruto twisted his head around this way and that, but no matter where he looked there was nothing but black trees against blacker shadows, all of them deadly still in the windless night. Naruto would bet anything Takashi had made some sort of clones to hide. Hide, and cut off any way they could run. "Hand him right over, and I'll let you live. Don't make me waste any more time on you."

Naruto couldn't take it anymore. "You bastard!" he screamed. "I won't let you hurt her. This time you're gonna have to fight both of us!" He kicked outward, careful not to jostle Yuki, and glared out in a random direction like he could see Takashi's stupid face in the dark.

"Where the fuck is your arm?"

Naruto stopped. Of all the things for Takashi to say to him, all the sorrys and excuses, he asks about Naruto's arm? What exactly did he expect when he tied Naruto down and carved up his stomach for some weird chakra ritual to bring about the end of the world? Takashi was such a moron!

"Seriously?" he howled, "I only need one to punch your face in, yanno! I-di-ot!"

Rather than running away from Naruto's fearsome growls and Yuki's even more fearsome everything, Takashi started whining again. "I'm so sorry, Naruto," he called from the dark to Yuki's left. "I'll be sure to fix that, make sure you're perfect again for when we go home together. The power of the kyuubi will make our world flawless, make you the perfect Uzumaki. Just, just come here, right here to me, Naruto. You won't be deformed for much longer, right."

Deformed. The stump on Naruto's left tingled as soon as he thought about it. He hadn't even gotten to see it yet, so for all he knew Takashi was right. Maybe he was even uglier than before. And even if he decided not to care about looks, he really wasn't sure how he was supposed to punch anybody's face in without his left arm. Even just sitting up he'd felt off-balance. How was he supposed to be a shinobi with messed-up chakra and a missing limb? He'd already sucked, and now…

Naruto gritted his teeth and clenched his remaining fist. Takashi wanted to destroy Konoha. Even if Naruto was worthless, now, even if he was a failure, he was protecting people who were precious to him! His goal, to become a great ninja, to live by his ninja code, didn't mean he got to give up just because of some measly wound. There was always a way to keep moving forward. Giving up Konoha to Takashi wasn't even on the table. He'd die first.

Like Haku.

"You won't touch him again, human filth. This is not your world." Yuki's growled threat interrupted Naruto's thoughts, and he snapped himself back into the present battle with a little gasp. Now was not the time for memories. Now was the time for kicking ass!

"Oh, right." Takashi said it in the same tone Naruto'd heard others say 'oh, please'. That tone being a super sarcastic one. "You're surrounded. I've trapped you like the animal you are. Naruto is mine."

"Huh," she replied. "Ballsy of you," Yuki drew back her tails and Naruto with them, "to try and outsmart a fox," and threw him spinning upwards on green flame. Naruto was flying. Heart-in-throat, stomach-in-toes flying. Going so fast shouldn't be possible! He was screaming his lungs out, flung at eye-watering speeds straight up and over the forest canopy with a funnel of green fox-fire rocketing him forward. With just two tails, Yuki had managed to send him shooting out and away from the battle field. Desperately, he flailed his arms, rotating to try and search the ground beneath him for any sort of landmark, but everything rushed past him like a midnight-green river. Even just trying to watch made him so dizzy he wanted to puke his guts out. Still, he caught a glimpse, more than enough, and saw that Yuki and Takashi were already fading into the distance. She was too far away for him to help her.

The last thing he heard before he blacked out was Takashi screaming his name, not nearly loud enough to drown out Yuki's piercing cackles.


	9. Present 4

Present: Shikamaru

Shikamaru let the pull of the Earth carry him down to the arena ground. The impact may hurt, but he needed to be underestimated. Without time for planning, he'd need every advantage he could get. So, lazily, carelessly, he collided with the ground and let the small stones scrape him slightly. He may look injured, may look incompetent, but he was not. He was a walking misconception, today, even to himself.

Just like Naruto.

"Uuugh," he groaned, hoisting himself upright. The Suna kunoichi was across from him with her massive fan, glaring at him over a sneer of disgust. Perfect.

Idly, Shikamaru noted that her hair was much less vibrant than Naruto's, almost greyish pitted against his sunshine blonde.

'Focus!' he snapped at himself. On the outside, he stayed bored and floppy, even as he pulled himself upright. Inside, he snarled at himself. He needed to win this, and he needed to win with as many advantages as possible for his next match.

Then, he could face Naruto.

It took everything Shikamaru had not to let his rage and killing intent seep out of his eyes towards his opponent. This much emotion was so unbelievably foreign to him that he half expected something black and viscous to ooze out of his ears and take his motivation with it, whispering as it left that a lazy bum like him was a poor host for such a strong suggestion. Worse than a genjutsu, a shadow had been cast into him from the moment Naruto entered the stadium.

But Nara must not fear shadows. They are shadows. And so Shikamaru saw Naruto and did not look away.

Now, standing in the arena and letting out a deep sigh, Shikamaru looked at the Suna-nin and saw something different. Like through his newfound Naruto-filter she became something more important. Like everything became more important. There, the way she twitched her foot, was a tell or a fake out or an old injury or inconclusive data to add to the arch of her shoulders the glimmer of her pupils dilating the grip she held on her fan and all of these things he saw were weapons for him and for her. She wasn't a troublesome test, or even an obstacle to remove on his way to Naruto. She was, in as impersonal a way as possible, the only thing that mattered right now, because Shikamaru had to reach Naruto wherever he'd been lost to, and in this mind-shattering goal of his the Suna-nin was more than an obstacle, she was an enemy.

He'd never wanted to beat someone so badly. And he was certain that this was only the beginning.

Part of Shikamaru, a part that was going largely ignored as his tactical mind took over, recognized that in some way this sort of purposeful action was something he'd been seeking for a long time. Whatever this was, he liked it. It wasn't boring.

And, it brought him closer to his father. To Asuma-sensei. And to Naruto.

"You ready, Nara, or are you gonna doze off?" the proctor, Genma, drawled. Shikamaru shrugged and ignored the questioning tilt of Genma's eyebrow. Figured that a special jounin would notice something was off with him. But, since Shikamaru didn't acknowledge it, Genma would have to leave it alone without blowing his cover.

"Troublesome…" he whined only half-facetiously. Genma was already looking away and the Suna-nin was glaring at him and opening her fan. The match would start soon, ready or not. And so Shikamaru reached down and slipped off his shoes. With so little chakra, he'd need to get creative.

"Are you ever going to take this seriously?" shouted the enemy. She looked furious. He could use that. Dangling his shoes from two fingers, Shikamaru reached up the other hand to scratch his nose. The movement would, hopefully, distract her from his intention to leap backwards into the shadows in 3…2…1…

"Match, start!"

The wind whistled off of the enemy's fan but Shikamaru was already 15, 20 meters back, in the shelter of the arena wall and the shadows it cast. His world now.

Except, the damn girl was too far away.

Shikamaru bent his knees just in time to gasp and brace against the slicing bite of wind from the enemy's wind-release. There was so much that it was ridiculous. Shikamaru snorted dust out of his nose and wrenched one eye open to peer out at the enemy.

She was standing still, almost posing with her fan as she watched the fruit of her labors blast against Shikamaru's guide. She was smirking.

Ah. Now Shikamaru knew what to do.

It would be a real drag, but if he wanted to reach Naruto, then he'd be a real bastard to balk at something like that. There was a choice to be made here.

The winds died down and the enemy looked out at him with a victorious baring of teeth. She was smug. Despite not landing a hit.

"You've given up already, haven't you, you coward. You haven't made a single move against me. Are you going to forfeit, like your other weak comrades?"

Shikamaru crouched down, staring unblinking at the enemy. Staring, until he closed his eyes and planted his fingers together, tip to tip, thumb to thumb.

He knew how to defeat this enemy. But that didn't mean he knew how to win. Checkmate, today, was not avoiding effort, or defeating this enemy. It wasn't even becoming a chunin. All of those things would be for nothing if he didn't reach Naruto.

He'd wanted something interesting. Stupid of him, to wish for something like that. Being bored wouldn't hurt him in the way caring about someone was about to hurt him.

Shikamaru thought of Naruto, up there somewhere in the stands. Naruto'd be watching him right now. Did he understand what Shikamaru was doing? Was he worried for him? Was he too tired and beat-up to care, right now?

No. Naruto, whatever happened, would never stop caring about a friend.

Funny how Shikamaru had never noticed that before, too busy looking away from Naruto.

Just like everyone else apparently.

Never again.

Shikamaru wanted to be a chunin. He wanted to be a Nara. He wanted to be a man worthy of standing by Naruto's side!

Shikamaru wrenched his fingertips apart and threw himself forward out of the shadows. His shoes, he abandoned on the dirt. His toes dug into the dirt as he ran through the sunlight straight at his enemy. He hadn't run barefoot…ever.

'I hope he's watching,' Shikamaru thought with a tiny grin. 'I hope they're all watching me do something dumb and difficult, all to reach the most difficult person of them all! Does he see, that with this strategy, it's him I'm thinking of for inspiration? Does he see me seeing him?'

The enemy, his enemy, looked wide-eyed at him, a crucial pause in which Shikamaru whipped his arm around and threw a kunai straight towards her fan. As he expected, she jumped back and, prompted by his initial push, began to retreat across the arena. Of course, in the meantime, she also launched a wind-release at him in the power and distance range to shatter his bones.

Shikamaru smirked from the shadows beneath the wall, watching his left shoe fly up into the air, thrown completely out of the arena by the attack. The replacement jutsu really was just nifty. And a low chakra-load, too, at such close range. That's why they taught it to academy students.

He was still winded though, wow, he'd never done that so fast before. His afternoon nap was going to last for days, after this ridiculousness.

His enemy was now in position, near to the divot in the ground Naruto had cast with his strange air-pulse jutsu. She was up on her toes, ready to jump back at the slightest provocation. Her eyes were scanning him and periodically scrunching and unscrunching. Whatever plans were running behind those eyes, he could not rule anything out. Failure had a higher price today than any of them knew.

Shikamaru couldn't wait to ask Naruto what that had been. He couldn't wait to ask Naruto about anything and everything. For any price.

The fan tilted a scant few degrees in his enemy's hand. Shikamaru immediately had his remaining shoe scooped into his hand as he ran for cover behind one of the few trees in the arena. The small tree just barely stood in the boundary of the shadows. Behind it, Shikamaru frantically wrenched off his jacket. He expected the jutsu would emerge any second now, and he had to be ready. Barely in time, Shikamaru tied off a kunai to the ends of his shirt and let it go just as the blast of a wind-release collided with his tree. He let the payload go, and threw himself, not behind shelter, but into the dust cloud and wind blades of his enemy's technique.

The wind sliced gashes into his exposed arms, held defensively to keep his core protected. He had seconds, maybe, before visibility returned. It hurt. It hurt like nothing Shikamaru had felt before. But, even with the blood, and the wind, and the -fucking troublesome- biting dust everywhere he made it to the next tree and hid himself before the cloud dissipated.

In the tree he'd left behind, the green of his shirt could be seen just glimpsing out of the branches, high enough that the form of the object was obscured and would direct his enemy's sight upwards, and stuck fast to the trunk of the tree by the kunai. To any non-sensor shinobi at a distance and without a doujutsu, his location would seem obvious. Like he'd climbed the tree rather than moving at all.

"I can see you, coward. Hiding like a cat up a tree, huh? I guess leaf-nin are all the same, tree-hugging pansies. You're really somethin' else, though. I figured you'd have at least thrown a shadow at me by now. Or are you too lazy to face me head on and lose?"

Shikamaru blankly watched from his spot tucked into the roots of his new tree. The crowd shouldn't be able to see him, and neither, apparently, did his enemy. If she did, and was tricking him, he had a plan for that.

He didn't need it.

His enemy crouched down behind her fan and prepared not only a wind jutsu, but a clone to appear to be using it. Bait for her trap.

Bait for his trap.

The circle indented by Naruto was in nearly the dead center of the arena. Shino and the puppet guy's fight hadn't so much as scuffed it. The indent was rough, and had no shadow of its own, but it was also perfectly circular. Not just round, perfect.

A perfect target when he threw his shoe into the circle and let it fall, hidden in the divot, with a silent puff that his enemy failed to notice as she stared up at the tree she thought he was in.

The audience gasped, likely at the reveal of his position, but Temari was simultaneously releasing her clone, a move that would elicit the exact same response, and so she remained ignorant of her fate. Shikamaru put his hands together with care he hadn't shown since before the academy, trying to put as little chakra as possible into his second replacement jutsu. Even just with these two, he'd be down nearly a quarter of his chakra reserves.

Standing in the center of the circle, behind his enemy, made it all worth it.

His enemy spun around, her clone, too, turning to attack him, but it was too late. Shadow capture was complete. And the clone was right next to his captured prey.

Shikamaru gripped his hands around an imaginary fan and slammed it into the air to his left. His enemy did the same, and the clone popped into a puff of smoke. As soon as it left, Shikamaru ran forward, kunai out, and held it against his enemy's throat.

Her hand hovered near his chest. The empty fist was harmless.

"Surrender," he growled, digging the kunai into her throat. The faster she gave in, the more chakra he'd have for later. A bead of blood ran down the blade and Shikamaru met his enemy eye to eye for the first time.

She looked terrified.

Naruto would care, that she was scared. He'd talk to her, convince her somehow to peacefully give in, or maybe he'd just knock her out and be done with it.

Shikamaru knew he wasn't actually planning to kill her or maim her, so he didn't really care. He was more worried what his loved ones would think. Up there in the stands, they were watching him, and this was the first time Shikamaru had shown violence like this. Effort like this, even.

Everything was changing all around him. And even if it didn't go perfectly, it was all too interesting to resist.

And even if he wasn't so great at hard work, or leadership, or anything other than napping, really, there was one thing he knew he was the best at. Believing in his friends came so naturally to him it was like having a shadow. He had to believe that they would still know him, even if he did, finally, grow up a little.

He still knew Naruto after all.

His enemy didn't look scared, anymore, as she stared him down. Mere seconds had passed, but already she had relaxed to stare thoughtfully at his face. Shikamaru flushed as he realized his thoughts about Naruto had probably shown on his face in some way. Now that was a stupid mistake.

The kunoichi sighed. "My brothers need me, anyways." Without being able to turn her head, she shifted her eyes towards Genma. "I surrender!" she called, loud and true.

The stadium erupted, Genma's hand fell, and Shikamaru let his enemy go free.

He and she both stepped back in unison, despite the lack of shadow. Shikamaru found himself slumping and looking down to warily assess the slicing wounds all up and down his arms. He suspected he had one on his cheek, as well, from the wet sting.

"I underestimated you," called the Suna-nin. Shikamaru nodded.

"I didn't," he replied. He didn't know which one of them he was referring to. He hoped she did, because now she was smiling.

"Good."


	10. Past 6

For the second time in as many days, Naruto woke up laying in dirt. He was for real starting to get pretty sick of dirt! This time was even worse, because he was face down and, somehow, he felt like he'd gotten a bunch of dirt up his nose. He snorted, hard.

Now he was laying in dirt and snot. Yaaaay.

Naruto sat up with a huff and squinted around at his surroundings. There was a dark patch of black that streaked away from him and the place he'd crashed, the only interruption to an odd, gentle green glow around him. He couldn't see it that well, but he figured the dark streak was some sort of divot leading into the crater from him landing.

That was actually pretty cool, that he'd survived falling out of the sky in his sleep.

At the edges of the crater, massive trees stretched up into the dark, black and shadowed. Shadowed, only because there was light to keep Naruto's eyes from getting used to the dark. So many lights, actually, that Naruto was totally surrounded by them.

Naruto started to wriggle his way up out of the dirt towards those lights only to crash forward onto his chin with a yelp. He'd tried to balance on his left arm. Naruto groaned and hung his head. His shoulder and chest were aching so much, he'd never realized pain could last for so long. Maybe he could just stay here and breathe for a little while…

No! Naruto threw his head back upwards and clenched his remaining fist. Yuki was waiting for him at the Kyuubi-rock or whatever! So, Naruto had to keep going. He leaned his weight to the right, ignoring how his ribs shifted painfully under his skin, and shoved upwards hard enough that he managed to get his feet under him and his right hand clenched into the soft dirt at the rim of his crater. Then, with a little hop and a painful twinge of his right collarbone, he sort of diagonally hoisted himself up out of the dirt and onto the tree roots that held the forest floor together. He even landed standing! Naruto grinned and looked down at his right arm, just visible in the mushroom-glow. Yeah, righty was looking more reliable by the minute!

Now that Naruto was free, he looked around more closely and scratched the back of his head. Some dirt fell out of his hair. Naruto grimaced and scrubbed his hand through all the hair he could reach. A lot more dirt came out. Naruto gave up and huffed. Then, Naruto's eyes widened and he leaned in towards the nearest light in front of him in spellbound awe.

The tree nearest to Naruto had a huge clump of the green-glow at about level with his head, and so also level with his breath. As soon as his air blew over the clump of lights, the green glow bloomed outwards. A scattering of green puffs of light detached from the tree and floated away to Naruto's left like dandelion seeds on a non-existent breeze.

"Eh?" he murmured. Now that he'd seen the green lights closer up, he realized in a click that, somehow, the patches of light were fox-fire, just like from the Aeorta and Yuki. They'd popped out from the mushrooms like sparks from a flame, except for how mushrooms weren't usually made of fire as far as Naruto knew.

Yet, they were mushrooms! Naruto could see, in the light of the fox-fire, every one of the little folds and ridges and caps of flesh that acted as shelter to the green light. The fox-fire was, somehow, not coming from foxes. Or, well, from fox-shaped chakra.

Did that mean these mushrooms were, like, chakra mushrooms?

He probably shouldn't eat any, just in case.

Something tapped against Naruto's back and he whipped around, fist raised. Only, as soon as he spun, whatever it was bumped into his lower back yet again, moving as fast as he was. So Naruto spun once more, ready to punch out at whatever was there, only to once again meet nothing but thin air. Naruto stilled, and after a moment nothing more happened.

Now more on edge than ever, Naruto pressed his back up against a tree, only to yelp when something large and lumpy dug into his back. He reached around and then sagged when his fingers met the backpack Yuki had given him.

Naruto snorted. His cheeks pulled up into a smile. Then, he burst into loud, raucous laughter, helpless and breathless. He'd just tried to attack his own backpack! That was so silly, and all that, but also what a freaking relief! There wasn't anything behind him but his own imagination.

While laughing, Naruto had clenched his eyes shut, so when he opened them he was surprised anew by how the clearing had changed in mere moments. All around him, the fox-fire sparks had released their holds on the flesh of their mushrooms, and all drifted away in a direction off to Naruto's left yet again.

Some of the sparks faded away in the dark, flickering out as they floated. But a few of the sparks lived to reach the ground where they immediately sprouted.

Every time a spark touched soil, a patch of grasses and flowers grew up to ankle-height in moments, all of the buds blooming so that their faces tilted in the direction the sparks flew. Only, the stems and leaves to Naruto's right, they faded just as quickly, going brown and dry until they crumbled into dirt and only the left-facing plants remained.

"The way that gives life," Naruto whispered. Yuki had told him exactly which direction to go to find her! And, since it was fox-fire, Naruto was willing to bet that Takashi would get burned if he tried to follow. Naruto beamed at the thought. Maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to do this.

A maybe was plenty to be worth trying for!

Naruto walked to the edge of the blooming flowers, staring down at them between his dirty shins. They were still glowing, a little, green like sunlight in Konoha's forests. They made Naruto feel less scared, to be here in the dark. Fox-fire, every time he'd met it, always seemed to welcome him. Everything about it just seemed like it was saying "you're home!" and "you can do it!"

Ahead of Naruto stretched nothing but black and unknown. He'd be lost in an instant if it was just him. Except, Yuki was guiding him even now. She'd made sure from the start that he'd know where to go.

So, Naruto reached out to the nearest tree and drifted a hand down the green glow that was just starting to light up the longer he stood near. Under his palm sparks flew forward ahead of him, and flowers immediately began to bloom in a trail leading off forward. The trees next to where the flowers grew also began to glow, like the mushrooms were just waking up from a nap.

Naruto smiled a quick thanks to the tree next to him and started forward.

* * *

The first time Naruto ran out of water, he was furious with himself every time he cried.

Like, he was already super thirsty! So why did his stupid body keep forcing him to let out even more water for no reason? It didn't help and he hated it! He wasn't supposed to cry, shinobi weren't supposed to give in to failure and feel sad and cry over things, they were supposed to fix things. Shinobi were supposed to, to, to be strong and silent and stuff and endure like a super cool person should.

Shinobi weren't supposed to be helpless.

Naruto was, though. Because no matter how much he looked, or sniffed, or ran, or rationed, he was out of water and there wasn't any water around him. No puddles, no streams, no rain, nothing. He couldn't do anything.

This was his second day without water and he felt really, really bad. So bad that he could feel the seal on his stomach and the tingle of his regenerating-chakra doing stuff to his stomach and throat, deep inside him where he couldn't see.

The tingling had been going on all day. He'd been pleased in the morning, because, well, he figured that the Kyuubi was helping him by healing him somehow.

Now, though, while Naruto sat in the dark and tried to curl up for sleep, dark and weird thoughts kept getting stuck in his head like "what if the Kyuubi's taking water from inside my body?" and "what if the Kyuubi is using how thirsty I am to kill me and escape?" and even though he knew that was stupid and pointless he just kept thinking it until his breath got sharper and sharper.

So, when Naruto heard something coming from all around him, it made a lot of sense that he sat bolt upright, got a bit dizzy, and bared his teeth to snarl at whatever invisible thing was making the weird noise.

Then, something fell on his nose.

High above his head in the unchanging dark, a sort of crackling noise was his only warning before rain began pounding down onto him, and woke up every single mushroom in sight in the process. Every tree was emitting sunlight, now, and so Naruto was able to look up and blink water out of his eyes just long enough to see - dark and shadowed but still there! – clouds. Clouds absolutely dumping water down over him.

Naruto gaped. This couldn't be real, after all, it was just too perfect. Yet, he could feel it. And, with his mouth open, he could taste it. Nothing but a drop, but that drop of water was even more delicious than Ichiraku ramen in that moment. Jumping up, he wrenched open his bag and opened up every container-like thing he could possibly find, including his backpack, and set them out beneath the sky-wide waterfall. He could see everything clearly in the light of the mushrooms reacting to the rain, and so not only did he tilt his head back with his mouth open wide, but he also began to frantically scrub at his skin with his scraggly fingernails. When he wasn't drinking whatever water fell onto his tongue, Naruto spent the rest of the evening watching rivulets of dirt rinse down his calves and onto the flowers blooming beneath him.

* * *

The first time Naruto tried to eat one of the mushrooms, he threw up.

After that, he stuck with the little grasses that sprouted from the fox-fire. The grasses that he recognized.

Even if they tasted gross.

* * *

The first time Naruto considered following the dark sides of the mushrooms instead of the fox-fire side, he'd been going for nearly a month.

What did it even mean, that everything going that way died?

Would Naruto die if he went that way?

What made the direction he was going special, and the way back special in the opposite way?

Naruto had figured, at first, that the fox-fire went in the direction of "life," as Yuki put it, because fox-fire was like sunlight and chakra and good-things all rolled into one. They certainly felt like that to him, all warm and bright and happy.

Except, it was the fox-fire that made the dead-plants, too. No matter how far Naruto walked through the woods, the same sized clumps of blooming flowers would wither and die. If he was getting further away from something that caused death, then wouldn't that have stopped?

So yeah, Naruto wondered a lot about what he was walking away from. He also wondered a lot why he felt just as warm and happy to feel the fox-fire of the dead plants as he did the living ones.

They all felt like fox-fire to him.

They all felt like home.

* * *

The first time Naruto ever cried in relief, he'd just set foot on a valley of stone, and he was looking out on nine streams that all branched from a central spring. Just like the nine tails of a fox.

After over a month, after running out of water over and over until he savored every drop like it was Ichiraku ramen, after eating anything remotely safe and still feeling his ribs get more and more obvious, he'd made it.

Seeing a blue sky felt surreal, now. Like waking up in the morning after a super-duper long dream. Or like the snow melting after winter. The stone beneath the blue sky was such a light grey, almost white a the edges of the streams, that it was nearly blinding! Naruto oddly found himself wishing for some shadows, if only to make for some contrast.

Yeah, Naruto nodded to himself. See, Shikamaru would be perfect right now.

Giggling, Naruto took a few steps forward before plopping down onto the rock. He'd had waaaay too much time to think while he was walking. It was a miracle he hadn't started talking to himself like a loon! But, he hadn't thought a lot about his friends in Konoha. Mostly, he thought about missing things like food, or water, or blankets, or fresh clothes. He'd missed company a lot, but it was kind of familiar. As a kid before the academy he'd go months without speaking to another human. So, he'd missed company in a sort of, um, nonspecific way? Like, he'd have like someone to talk to, but he still felt just as gross and desperate and sad-scared at the idea of other humans that he did in Konoha, so the loneliness never really felt different than it felt any other time in Naruto's life.

Honestly, he'd thought the most about Yuki. About how he couldn't wait to get back to her. About how proud she'd be that he made it. He'd imagined arriving at some hazy, imagined spot and seeing Yuki waiting for him and her running over to him and cuddling him close in her tails.

She wasn't here, though.

She'd said she might be late! Naruto had three whole days to wait for her. He'd probably wait twice that, if she didn't show up, because obviously he was so awesome that he'd arrived early. Yeah, there was no way that she wouldn't come. Takashi was no match for her!

Right?

Naruto snarled and shook his head back and forth. He hated that word.

Yuki hadn't ever lied to him yet. And she was a fox, which just made her feel different to a human. She'd come. She had to. If Naruto could do it, then so could she!

Naruto sighed. He was never quite certain if people were going to hurt him or stay out of his way or randomly decide to be nice to him. Even with his team, the closest he had to friends, he was good at getting them to pay attention to him but that was about it. Kakashi-sensei had said that those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash, and Naruto would absolutely never be worse than trash! Sasuke though, and Sakura…and Kakashi-sensei had ditched them plenty.

Then there was Takashi.

Yuki, though, was different. Naruto didn't really get why, or what it was that just made her make sense to him, but Naruto realized that sometime over the past month he'd decided to trust her. It felt weird, and scary, and like he was standing in front of a cart in the road that was about to hit him if he didn't move, but he still felt it. Because, Yuki, she really deserved it. And Naruto, even though it made no sense, felt like a more trustworthy person because he was trusting her.

Maybe, now with Yuki, Naruto would be able to say "this person is not like Yuki, so I shouldn't trust them" and then stuff like with Mizuki and Takashi wouldn't happen.

Maybe, if Naruto tried to be like Yuki, then he could be someone that Konoha and all of his precious people trusted someday. And once they trusted him, then maybe he'd be able to understand them better and trust them back.

A maybe was plenty to be worth trying for.


	11. Past 7

Past

The stone wasn't quite so blinding anymore, now that the sun was setting.

Naruto stared out towards the red and pink on the horizon beyond the forest. Now that he was out of the woods, he could see that the sunset, and thus the Kyuubi-tree, was clockwise by maybe around four hours from the path of death. That meant that, for some reason, Naruto had zig-zagged on his way to this huge rock with its nine streams. All he could figure was that Yuki had thrown him crooked, maybe?

He was totally going to tease her about that when she got here.

The nine streams on the stone were so clear it was hard to even see them. The stone beneath them was just so bright and clean and white, and the streams each had their own little groove in the rock. The name of the rock meant that it was supposed to be nine grooves for each of the Kyuubi's tails, and they did look soft enough. They weren't cracks or divots or even just how the stone happened to be shaped. All Naruto could compare it to was like wrinkled bedsheets, or glazed pottery. Between the silent water's waves and the stone's waves, the whole place just came across to Naruto as inexplicably smooth. It reminded him a lot of Yuki's tails.

With a loud sigh, Naruto leaned back and grimaced. The first thing he'd done when he got here was drink as much water as he physically could. Now, whenever he moved he kind of…sloshed. He'd never sloshed before. There wasn't any food here, though, and sloshing was way better for his stomach than grumbling and twisting.

It hadn't been three days yet. The sun hadn't set quite all the way, which meant it hadn't been three days. So, Yuki was definitely coming. Because Naruto trusted Yuki, and she'd said she'd be here.

She was coming.

She'd be here.

She was totally okay.

The last tiny sliver of sun just touched the horizon, and Naruto's heart clenched in his chest.

"Naruto!"

Naruto whipped around towards the call. There, bounding out of the woods, there she was! She'd made it! Her teeth were all bared in a grisly smile, and with every leap she took towards Naruto her hind legs kicked higher and higher until she was prancing towards him like a giant puppy. With a yelp of his own, Naruto threw himself upright and leaped up onto his feet, sprinting out across the stone towards Yuki.

"Yukiiiiiiii!" Throwing out his arm, Naruto collided against Yuki just at the edge of the stone, and then he had his arm around her. But more importantly, all of her tails were wrapped up around him and she was laughing and warm and right there! "Yuki!" he mumbled again, this time buried in the thick fur of her chest and throat. He could feel her massive pulse, and he loved every single thump of it.

"Oh, my Naruto, my kit, I was so scared! Thank the Kyuubi you're okay!" When Naruto had been little, he'd been at a playground, once, before he'd been run off, and some stupid littler kid had wandered off. The kid's mom, it must've been his mom, had yelled the dumb kid's name over and over until he came out from under the slide. When she spotted the kid, the mom had scooped him up and said 'Thank goodness'. The tone she'd had, like her most precious treasure had been found, that was how Yuki sounded. Naruto's eyes went hot and blurry. Yuki probably didn't notice, which Naruto was super glad about, because she just stayed wrapped around him, running several of her tails up and down his ribs. "Oh, oh no," she moaned after a few sweeps, "you're so skinny!" Naruto's stomach swooped and his eyes got hotter and wetter. Quickly, he pulled his face out of Yuki's fur to glare up at her.

"You were almost late-ttebayo!" he scolded. Yuki's ears flicked back over a gleaming red set of puppy-eyes. Naruto pouted. That just wasn't fair!

"But I was on time!" said Yuki, tilting her head and wrapping more tails around his stomach. It growled, and Yuki eyed his torso with a grin. A single tail rose from behind her. There was a large sack slung over the curl of the tip. "And," she continued, "I brought dinner?"

Naruto eyed the sack for a moment, but he just couldn't keep his pout when Yuki started wiggling her fuzzy eyebrows at him like some big dork. In its place, a smile stretched over Naruto's cheeks against his will. Oddly, when he smiled like this, without a choice, his eyes didn't scrunch shut like when he smiled on purpose. Naruto figured that was okay, though, because it meant his eyes were open when Yuki smiled back, before opening the sack and dumping out the tastiest feast Naruto had seen in months.

Yuki was the best. Dattebayo.

* * *

"We'll need to leave sometime today, kit. Now that you've slept a good night through and eaten some solid meals, it's best not to linger where that human wretch could catch up."

Naruto felt weird, hearing Yuki talk about Takashi. Like, he'd spent over a month with Takashi, then only a few days with Yuki, and then a month all alone. And now, Yuki had only just found him last night! He didn't even really get what was going on. Not like he was being stupid about it, he got that Takashi wanted to catch him and then use the Kyuubi to hurt Konoha, but he also was having some trouble figuring out just why all of these things were happening. Like, for the first time, Naruto thought it was very strange, that he out of anybody had the Kyuubi inside of him, that he out of anybody had ended up in this situation. And Takashi and Yuki, they were both weird too, maybe, because Naruto was pretty sure he knew what they wanted, but why they wanted it was beyond him in so many ways. He wanted to understand them. Both of them.

"Hey, Yuki?" he called. Yuki looked up from where she was rearranging something or other in her sack. She had a fuuinjutsu brush between her teeth. "Uh, um." The longer Yuki looked at him, the more Naruto panicked. "Where are we going!" he yelped. Yuki stared at him a moment longer. Then, she shrugged and spun the brush away into some hidden place in thin air.

"Ideally, we're getting you back to Konoha, where Takashi won't be able to take you so easily. Then I can get on with hunting him down without putting you at risk." Yuki shrugged again. "The humans there have to be good for something, if you lasted this long. Though," she eyed him thoughtfully, "you are fairly cunning yourself. I know you've been able to protect yourself before. How have you been doing without access to your chakra?"

Naruto gulped. He'd completely forgotten he couldn't use any jutsus anymore.

The skin on his stomach was just as scarred and stretched as it had felt when he woke up the first time from the Kyuubi Tree fight. In the woods, it had reminded him of what was inside him so often, that he'd kind of started to think of it as a way for the Kyuubi to get out rather than as something that kept the Kyuubi in. And, well, kept him inside as well. He was his chakra, kind of, yeah? He thought he could remember Iruka-sensei saying something like that, once.

"Naruto." Naruto looked up to see Yuki staring back at him, eyes warm and crinkled. He took a deep breath. It'd been a while since he'd gone so long without talking, and he had the sinking suspicion that he was going to keep forgetting to answer Yuki for a few days yet, before he got used to someone being there again. Yuki's eyes softened further. She leaned down close, and Naruto drew his knees up to his chest. He felt super small at first, next to Yuki, but then she wrapped herself around him like a mama cat around a kitten, and then he just felt warm. "We'll get you back to Konoha, little fox," she said. Naruto winced, and Yuki coiled tighter. "What's the matter, Naruto?"

"Nothing," Naruto muttered reflexively. Yuki stayed wrapped around him, silent and strong. She didn't agree with him and change the subject. She also didn't call him on lying. It took a minute for Naruto to try again, but her quiet made it easier. "So," he whispered, "I'm going home to Konoha, and then you're gonna stay here."

"Ah, I see."

Naruto frowned and squinted up at Yuki's massive, looming head. "Whuh?" he called. Yuki's warm breath puffed in his face, and he could feel his bangs blow away from his forehead. It still felt weird, having his forehead bare. Yuki's face came in close to his until one single, red eye was level with his face, staring deep into his own. When she spoke, Yuki's voice echoed not from her clenched jaw and bared teeth, but from deep in her chest.

"You're my kit, now, Naruto," she said. A growl rumbled beneath her words. "You need to be in Konoha, and so that's where I'll be going. I am not abandoning you."

Naruto could feel his lungs expand, bending at the edges with how wonderful her words made him feel.

"Oh," he weakly replied. Yuki's big eye blinked once, slow. "Um, sorry, for, um, uh. I didn't, I didn't mean…"

"I know. I understand." Yuki pulled her head back away, and retreated further away from him to return her attentions to their travel sack. "Thank you for the apology, Naruto. Don't worry anymore, now, okay?"

"Yeah," said Naruto. One of Yuki's tails had remained wrapped loosely around his ankle. He could easily get away if he wanted, but that wasn't the point, he didn't think. "Okay."

The Kyuubi stone, with its nine streams, was even brighter in the morning light than in the dusk light, blinding white where the sunset made the stone burn orange and gold. The sun wasn't climbing in the sky, though, just skating its path around the edge of the world like always, so Naruto couldn't begin to guess why the sky was different colors at different times of day if the sun never actually got any higher. Just sitting and staring at the sky was nice, though.

Or rather, it had been for the first three days. Now, Naruto had company and he was very ready to go home.

"So how do we get back to Konoha? Do we get to write a seal?" he asked. Yuki was filling up the last of a long line of funnel-topped bottles with water, but she looked up to answer him immediately. Her attention made Naruto feel solid. Like, Yuki was solid and reliable and she payed attention to Naruto so he also got to be solid and reliable.

"Mmm," she hummed. One tail flicked up to tap her chin thoughtfully. "No. It's not quite that easy, see. There can't just be a seal on this side of the world, but there has to be one in your world as well. The nine trees are usually the only places that reliably have some marker on the other side. But!" Yuki's tail darted away and she beamed over her shoulder to Naruto. "There is one place where a seal remains."

"Cool!" Naruto yelled. "Where is it?"

"Ah," Yuki slowly replied. The tail returned, and her smile faded. "What you have to understand about the summoning realm is that it's the same world as yours, in many ways. We live amongst the same hills and oceans, separated only by who does the living. Here, chakra floods the world untouched. There, it is humans. But, beneath it all, the bedrock is the same." Yuki was frowning, now. Naruto eyed her warily. He thought he was understanding what she was saying, but he didn't get what that had to do with where they were going, and that made him kind of nervous. "The forest surrounding the Kyuubi Tree, for example, is the same forest which surrounds Konoha, only changed in the places where chakra, here, has taken root, and where humans, there, have cut those roots away. The forest you traversed is, plainly put, the forest that would be in your world if Konoha had never existed."

Puffing up his cheeks, Naruto rocked forward in his seat and grabbed his ankles in his one hand. "What's all this gotta do with getting home?" he asked. Yuki put down the last water bottle and turned to face him fully.

"There is one place in your world with the skill in sealing we need." As she spoke, Yuki's tails, as one, rotated to point back into the forest he'd come from, only this time they pointed in the direction in which the plants unanimously died. "Tomorrow, we will set out for the red shores of Uzushio. Tomorrow, we will begin your journey home."

* * *

The green light of foxfire swirled around Naruto and Yuki.

He and Yuki had ventured back into the forest together, and several days had passed in simple peaceful walking. Their journey had been quiet, so far. At first, Naruto had been stuck on the thought of Uzushio. Yuki had made sure that he understood that Uzushiogakure wouldn't be there. Still, something about Uzushio had made the Uzumaki choose it as their home. Maybe he'd love it as well. Except, Konoha was his home. And he'd never even met any Uzumaki. So, Naruto's thoughts just kept going in circles, round and round between Uzushio and Konoha until he gave up and decided to think about basically anything else. 'Anything else' was pretty limited thanks to being on a super long trip through a forest with nobody but Yuki. In all, Naruto was just about ready to burst he was so bored.

Naruto would later reflect that being bored was super underrated.

Yuki was walking at Naruto's side. He'd noticed early on that she was totally silent. Her paws didn't crinkle the leaves, snap any twigs, nothing. Her breaths were quiet, too. Her silence made Naruto self-conscious, and so he'd been trying to be quiet like her. He was pretty sure he'd gotten his breaths quiet, but walking quiet was way harder here in the woods than it was in Konoha. He could do it! He was too good at pranks to be completely useless at traveling silently. It was just harder work when it was for hours and hours and through a forest.

Eventually, Naruto couldn't stand it anymore and he yawned long and deep. His lone arm was always sore, these days, so he reached it up in a long stretch as well, groaning from deep in his chest. It came out a bit squeaky, but Naruto refused to acknowledge that.

Then, he made an even squeakier noise when Yuki used his arm being raised to jab a tail into his armpit.

Naruto hunched over with a yelp, scowling over at Yuki, who was snorting through poorly hidden giggles. He was just about ready to yell his displeasure, when her laughter cut off all at once and she stared him down with freezing cold eyes.

"You can't let your guard down," she said. "With ninjutsu taken from you, likely for the rest of your life, your taijutsu and fuuinjutsu have to be flawless. You've been doing well at practicing silence, but that won't be enough for long." Just as quickly as the blank cold had fallen over her face, Yuki grinned once again, baring all of her sharp white teeth. "So, to keep my precious kit safe, I'm just going to have to tickle some situational awareness into you!"

"Wha-?" Naruto barely had time to gasp before Yuki was on him, jabbing tails at his neck and his stump, assaulting him with bits of white fluff.

Their pace forward sped up significantly as Naruto learned to sprint for his dignity away from the madly giggling fox nipping at his heels.

* * *

Every night, Naruto flopped over wherever they chose to stop. Running was so exhausting! It didn't used to be, but all of his steps were off, now. He didn't know, before, just how much work his left arm did even when he wasn't using it. It kept him balanced, and propelled him forward, stabilized him. Now it was gone every other bit of his body felt like it was working even harder.

It didn't help that Yuki was totally targeting the spot where she'd bitten it off.

"Hey, hey," he huffed at Yuki. He was leaning against her flank, rising and falling with her steady breaths. She didn't ever get tired for some reason. Naruto wanted to be like her so much that he could taste it! "Why do you gotta keep targeting my stump, huh? That's totally not fair! And tickling it feels weird, too. Like, I don't think I'm supposed to have skin there, so you touching feels, mmm, yanno."

"Everyone you ever fight is going to target it, Naruto," Yuki gently replied. Naruto slumped slightly against her. "The better you get at dealing with it, the more a weakness can be a strength. You'll get better. You're already getting better. If you can think of a better way for me to train you, I'd be happy to try it, but for now this seems like our best option."

"It's embarrassing," Naruto muttered. He wasn't truly arguing, he got Yuki's point. But still! Yuki's laugh rumbled through her chest against Naruto's back.

"You're my kit," said Yuki, voice dripping in affection. Naruto's face heated, but his stomach squirmed happily. "It's my job to embarrass you!"

"No it's not!" he yelled. Yuki's laughs got more jarring, until Naruto sat up and turned to plant his palm against her flank. "You just think it's funny!"

"Ha ha!" Control was not returning to Yuki. Rather, she was laughing harder. "Making the world a bit funnier is my job! Didn't you know, Naruto? The world is absurd, chaotic, and full of unexpected joys. I consider it not just my job, but my calling to add some laughter to the mix."

"Heh," Naruto huffed. He could kind of understand that. The urge to prank somebody always got worse, after all, when the villagers were being particularly mean. It was like, if he didn't understand why people were doing things, and the world was all strange and hostile, he might as well try to make it better by making a joke of it. Still. He'd never really thought, much, that playing a prank could maybe make the world better.

"Ah, still. Best we get you started on your fuuinjutsu, now your taijutsu is starting to come along."

"Eh!?" Naruto bolted upright, standing before Yuki on steady feet. He was kind of proud, actually, not long ago he'd have been off balance for a second while his body remembered that he was missing some weight on his left. "You're gonna teach me more seals? Yes! What first? Can I have a brush? Can we learn more tomorrow, too?"

"Mmm, of course," Yuki replied. "You're a fox, sealing is basically required, and from what I've gathered you have a talent for it. Not to mention all of that chakra you've got should go to some use, if ninjutsu isn't an option anymore. Tell me, what have you learned so far?"

Naruto wilted. This was going to be way more embarrassing than the taijutsu practice. "Well, ano," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. Yuki didn't make a jab at his opening this time, thank goodness. "I only kind of learned how to make a storage seal, but I can't manage to seal anything but plain ol' air. Takashi said-" Naruto cut himself off with a gulp. Yuki shuffled towards him and wrapped a tail around his shoulders. "Um, that is, I learned all of the pieces for a storage seal, and how to put them together, but sometimes I got this idea that I could try something different and then Takashi would have me start over. I guess I'm not super great at seals, cuz I couldn't write ones like Takashi's, even when they were right in front of me." Naruto grimaced and looked away. He didn't want to see Yuki's face, not after she'd sounded so sure of his abilities. Not to mention, he wasn't a fox, and whatever foxes and sealing had to do with each other, this might be the thing that made Yuki decide he was a human after all and not worth her time.

"That's ridiculous." Naruto winced. He could feel Yuki staring at him, but still wasn't willing to look up. "You can't learn seals through mimicry, not entirely anyways. Not if you want to be a good seal master. It sounds to me that your instincts are better than I thought. After all, a storage seal for air is much more useful if it isn't used for storage."

"Huh?"

"Think about it." Yuki laid down her big head into her paws. Her seven long tails waved behind her, lazy like reeds above a pond. "When you play a prank, you never use an object for its intended use, right? A fight is much the same, as is sealing. You get much more use out of things by thinking about what they can do rather than what they should do. Like, mmm, water. It should be used for drinking or bathing, but a good prank uses water to soak someone or something, or make something slippery, maybe to move something, or even to hide something in an unexpected place. All parts of a seal are like that. No seal should be for 'storage' because a seal that can pull something into it, keep it there, and then release it again can do so much more than just store things!"

Naruto hadn't thought of it like that. Now that he was, he couldn't help but think that the ability to move air around, especially knowing, now, about stuff like air pressure, was way more useful than he'd thought.

"Could, maybe," said Naruto, staring ponderously into the air above him, "could I use it to make a super strong breeze? Or, like, a whirlpool of air? Or to use air to push things?"

"See, Naruto?" Yuki replied. "You do have a talent for this. You're thinking like a fox, now."

* * *

Six whole weeks.

Six whole weeks of training, of fluffy taijutsu completely different than anything he'd learned before, of fuuinjutsu totally different than all the stuff Takashi had said, and of talking and laughing and playing with Yuki, who never once left his side.

The trees were beginning to thin, now, as the foxfire growth gave way to normal old woods. Lots more sunlight shone through, as a result, and Naruto found he liked it lots better than the perpetual night of the foxfire forests. It was like the night felt more unreal and significant, when there was daylight there to remind him of what realness and being awake felt like. Yuki seemed pleased as well, if her bouncy steps and flouncy tails were anything to go by.

Naruto, too, was feeling not good, but better. Just yesterday, he'd managed to get in a hit on Yuki while avoiding her jabs! He'd gotten hit right after, sure, which had made Yuki scold him, but he was still kind of proud. And he could tell Yuki was, too.

Being a shinobi, even while missing an arm, it didn't feel impossible anymore.

As they approached their destination, Naruto was running ahead, peering into crannies and gaps, more out of boredom and excess energy than out of any real curiosity. Everything here looked the same after six whole weeks of walking. This was one of his rare breaks, though, and the lack of training was kind of getting to him. If they stopped, he could at least try to take a nap, but he wanted to reach Uzushio soon, too, and he knew Yuki did too.

So, when Naruto ducked his head to peek under a passing tree and spotted a monster, he was pretty surprised.

Naruto had to stifle a scream. He jerked back from the nook in the roots and scrambled towards Yuki, baring his teeth and clenching his fist all the while. Just as his back hit warm fur he felt a set of tails wind around him into a shield of fluff.

"Peace, little fox, it's okay. It can't do anything, we're okay."

Incredulously, Naruto kept his eyes on the monster beneath the tree and watched as, true to Yuki's word, the beast did not so much as twitch. On second observation, Naruto saw that its eyes were clouded and unmoving for all the creature was breathing.

"W-what is it?" he whispered up to Yuki. He'd never seen a creature anything like it. Its huge head and body, larger than three of Yuki, was flaming orange sliced through with black stripes and its massive paws boasted claws the size of kunai. Under all the fur, Naruto could tell that, even compared to Yuki, that thing was all muscle.

"She's called a tiger. Or, rather, a tigress. She's a Hyuuga summons. All the tigers were."

Naruto leaned in slightly to focus on the tiger's eyes. They looked cloudy, sure, but not in the natural way that Hinata-chan's were. The tiger just looked sick. "Hyuuga?" he asked, returning to his normal volume.

"They do something to their shinobi, bind their chakra into them. Only a few members of the Hyuuga did not have it, and their summons are long dead or gone. After the tigers began to fade, the remaining free elders took back their summoning contract. But those elders died a long time ago, and the contract with them. The only tigers remaining are those remnants of the bound Hyuuga. They're all like that. Lingering."

Naruto shuddered, and tore his eyes away from the tiger. "Why?"

Yuki shrugged above his head. "A summons is chakra given form. When contracted to a shinobi, their chakra and our selves, it's like, mmm, a reflection in a mirror. The Hyuuga, they have flesh bodies with which to perform actions not dictated by whatever curse this is. The summons, beings of pure chakra, had no such protection." Yuki sounded sad, and Naruto could appreciate why. It was a sad story, he could tell already. What set the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge was the tone of pleasure in Yuki's voice. Like she'd been hoping for something like this. "When I was little, I met a tiger who managed to escape their seal when their summoner died. I thought someone must be dying, but when I and my father followed the sound of screaming, I found only a dying tiger. My father told me that evening about the tigers of old, before the Hyuuga began binding away their own people's chakra. They were proud, free hunters of the forests. The betrayal of the tigers by the Hyuuga can only be compared to the betrayal of kin." Yuki sighed and one tail twirled to wrap firmly around Naruto's hand. Something fell between Naruto's fingers and he grasped it under the pressure of Yuki's hold. He looked down to his hand. It was a kunai. "You've come a far way in your training, Naruto. Far enough that you're ready to learn this as well." Yuki paused, and the pride in her voice faded to something solid and regretful. "This tigress is a corpse waiting for her pain to end. Put her to rest, Naruto."

Naruto's fingers clenched around the kunai. He turned to look at the tigress. She didn't look alive or dead, asleep or awake. Yet, she still looked like she was watching him.

His arm was shaking.

When Naruto stepped away from her, the kunai left lodged in her massive skull, he stepped straight into Yuki's embrace. The first sob that shuddered through him shouldn't have been such a surprise, but even so it took him a moment to realize why his fingers were cramping from their grip on Yuki's pelt.

"Naruto." The whisper above him was accompanied by Yuki's heartbeat in his ear. The sound made Naruto's breath speed up, imagining that it was Yuki instead whose fur and bone had given way beneath his knife. "You must never forget this. Never forget what evil looks like, or how it spreads to infect everyone it touches. Chakra is life, and self, all in one. And so, it is also death. That's what makes us shinobi."


End file.
